If you've been paying attention to the evolution of gay rights issues in the last few years, you know that public opinion has been changing rapidly, as rapidly as on any issue I can remember. The American public has turned away from arenas of discrimination one by one -- employment, housing, military service -- and now it looks as though marriage equality has majority support. Nevertheless, there was one finding in a new Washington Post poll of citizens in Virginia I found surprising. Look at the second chart:
For many years, support for adoption rights for gay couples was lower than that for any other gay-rights question. But in this poll, support for adoption is even higher than for marriage. For many years, the idea of a family headed by a gay couple probably seemed bizarre and unsettling to most Americans, but it doesn't any longer. Granted, this is only one state, but Virginia is a swing state that is a good stand-in for America in some ways -- a highly educated, racially diverse and economically vibrant liberal north, combined with a far more homogeneous and conservative south. But both are changing.
Some have predicted, correctly I think, that in the next Democratic presidential primary (2016), support for gay marriage will be a litmus test all the candidates will have to pass. But I wouldn't be surprised if in the contested Republican primary following that, at least some of the GOP candidates embrace it, too.
