“There’s a lot of things that go along with support for same-sex marriage – attitudes such as awareness that people are born gay,” said Feldman. Young voters’ “underlying attitudes about gay people and gay rights are very different” from older voters, she said.
Many Republican analysts privately agree.
“It’s only a matter of time,” said a prominent Republican pollster, who declined to be named for stating a view that runs contrary to those of many of his clients. “Once the dam bursts, which is going to happen, it’s a process that won’t be stopped.”
And that sense of a building flood is part of the reason that the recent setbacks have prompted no serious evaluation of the goals of the gay rights movement, and no discussion of backing off a totemic issue – though one which some gay leaders, like Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), have long argued should be postponed for more practical fights. If anything, the energy and money of the gay rights movement are directed toward more energetic, more confrontational tactics; civil disobedience, Mixner suggested, will become more common in 2010.
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