According to the latest Field Poll, approval of gay marriage in California is continuing its accelerated pace of the past few years. Between 1977 and 2006, the number of people who approve of same-sex marriage increased slowly but steadily at the rate of about half a percentage point per year. Since 2006, however, approval has skyrocketed from 44 percent to 61 percent, a little over two percentage points per year.
The latest poll confirms this growth rate: the number approving has gone up from 59 percent to 61 percent in just one year. We’re now very close to the two-thirds tipping point that’s a good rule of thumb for getting major legislation passed consistently. Even as we wait for Proposition 8 to wend its way through the court, it’s pretty obvious that within a year or two it won’t matter. An initiative to make gay marriage legal will barely even be controversial and would pass by a wide margin if it were on the ballot.
