IGF CultureWatch

Reading Dale Carpenter's roundup of recent same-sex marriage developments at Volokh.com, it's easy to see why some folks are talking about a tipping point. A cautionary note, though, about the much-discussed ABC-Washington Post poll showing, for the first time, more people supporting SSM than opposing it: The question doesn't allow for a third option, civil unions-which is a much better way to ask the question, since it distinguishes real SSM supporters (and opponents) from fence-sitters.

I haven't seen a three-way poll lately, but generally they're less volatile and show a sizable majority of the country to be sympathetic to same-sex unions but unsupportive of marriage. I'd wager the ABC-Post poll is an outlier. Public opinion on values issues just doesn't change that fast.

Here's something in the poll data which is revealing, if indirectly. Rising support for SSM is accompanied by increased support for legalizing illegal immigrants and decriminalizing marijuana-but also by a decline in support for gun control. A new poll from Pew confirms the turn against gun control, and adds that opposition to abortion is growing.

What does all of that have to do with gay marriage? Just this: It suggests that SSM is part of a libertarian shift in values-not a libertine shift or a flight from values altogether. The public increasingly rejects the claim that gay marriage harms a third party (as abortion does) or violates anyone's rights (as gun control arguably does).

No wonder the National Organization for Marriage and others have taken to claiming that gay marriage is a rights violation rather than a right. It's their last, best hope of persuading the public that gay marriage hurts someone. So far, the public isn't buying.