Poll After Poll Finds Solid (and Increasing) Majority of U.S. Catholics Support Marriage Equality

I just linked to a recent New York Times/CBS poll which shows that 62% of American Catholics support same-sex marriage. As the Times article by Laurie Goodstein and Megan Thee-Brenan to which I've linked notes, this rate of support is higher than the American rate as a whole: 53% of Americans approve of same-sex marriage.

The Times/CBS poll is not the only recent poll finding a strong majority of Catholics supporting--of lay Catholics supporting--marriage equality. As Karen Tumulty and Tom Hamburger reported in the Washington Post last week, recent research of pollsters Joel Benenson and Jan van Louhizen on behalf of Freedom to Marry also finds American Catholics supporting marriage equality by double-digit margins. Benenson and van Louhizen find that opposition to same-sex marriage is both shrinking and now largely confined to those 65 and older, to white evangelicals, and to non-college-educated whites.

Or, as John Aravosis characterizes the findings of this study: "Honey, I shrunk the bigots."

Meanwhile, at Politico, Kevin Cirilli is reporting that a new Quinnipiac University poll shows the rate of Catholic support somewhat lower than the rate shown by the Times and CBS: the Quinnipiac figure is 54%--still a substantial majority, and as Cirilli notes, an expanding one.

And with all these solid data in place, isn't it interesting that the mainstream media still want to talk in this lead-up to the papal election as if "real" Catholics reject the notion of gay rights and gay marriage? Wonder what that's all about . . . .

(Thanks to Alan McCornick for the link to Kevin Cirilli's article.)

The graphic is from Sensus Fidelium, a website of Catholics for Marriage Equality Minnesota.