If only people between the ages of 18 to 29 voted, 38 states would support gay marriage, says a study by Jeffrey Lax and Justin Phillips of Columbia University. Will today’s youngsters change their minds about gay marriage as they age? Don’t count on it.

Support for issues such as gays’ ability to adopt and marry appears closely linked to how close you are with gay people. And a CNN/Opinion Research poll last year said 49% report having a family member or close friend who is gay. That’s up eight points from 1998 and up 17 points from 1992. Among those 65 and older, just one in three say that.

About two out of five Americans support legalizing pot — one in five among seniors and three in five among young adults. But the pot question, unlike the gay-marriage question, has been posed for decades. So the demographic trends are clearer: even in the Cheech and Chong-y ’70s, support for legalizing marijuana peaked at 30%. Today’s figures are, um, higher than ever — and the Pew figures are backed by a Gallup survey last fall in which 44% OK’d legalized toking. Medicinal marijuana enjoys 73% support.

Just about the only encouragement for cultural conservatives lately has been an uptick in the popularity of the term “pro-life.” A Gallup poll last fall found 51% calling themselves pro-life (before subsiding to 47% in the most recent survey). But there hasn’t been a surge in calling for the criminalization of abortion, or even for discarding Roe v. Wade (which could be nixed without any state making abortion illegal).