George Will: “Quite literally, the opposition to gay marriage is dying. It’s old people.”

12/9/2012 6:56pm by 34

Geore Will discusses on ABC’s “This Week” the Supreme Court’s recent decision to hear two gay marriage cases involving the Defense of Marriage Act and Prop 8 in California.

Will says, and I know others who agree, that the court could look at the election, and four states that sided with gay marriage advocates, and say:

“It’s not necessary for us to go here… let the democracy take care of this.”

Or they could say:

“It’s now safe to look at this because there is something like an emerging consensus [in favor of gay marriage]. Quite literally, the opposition to gay marriage is dying. It’s old people.”

Pew has a nice chart showing support for gay marriage, over time, broken down by age:

And here’s the video with George Will:

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@aravosis | Facebook | Google+. Editor of AMERICAblog, joint JD/MSFS from Georgetown, worked in the US Senate, World Bank, Children's Defense Fund, and as a stringer for the Economist. A frequent TV pundit, he has been on The O'Reilly Factor, Hardball, World News Tonight, Nightline & Reliable Sources. Full bio and .

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  • http://twitter.com/JakeOrlando Jake Orlando

    Two kinds of people get paid in politics: people who tell you what you want to hear and people who tell the truth; you can’t elect anyone without both.

  • http://www.facebook.com/dennis.velco.artist Dennis Velco

    Thanks for this article and your reporting. What you do is appreciated.

    I posted it to my LGBT Group on LinkedIn to spur members to read your article and to make comment. I also scooped it at Scoop.It on my LGBT Times news mashup.

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  • Sweetie

    There’s a big problem with this. Progress doesn’t always happen. Look at Germany. There were plenty of out gay people in Berlin. Guess what happened?

    It suddenly became a very unwise place to be out in.

    It is in our interest to fight for our rights, not wait for a future that may not come.

    • Sweetie

      Plus, this country is exporting hate to Uganda and other places, so Exxon and others can get nice deals on resources. I suppose we’re supposed to do nothing about that, too?

  • http://fighttherightwingnuts.blogspot.com/ mike31c

    The bigots and RWNJ’s are not dying fast enough. They breed like rabbits and spread their infection of ignorance quite easily because their so-called ‘god’ told them to.

  • Krusher

    Which means that it will be safe for George Will to come out of the closet in about 10 years.

    • Sweetie

      Let me guess… you think everyone is gay.

      • Krusher

        Well…no.

      • http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot

        You mean…?…..OMG!

        • Sweetie

          My husband’s uncle is very much like George Will in manner and appearance, only generally less talkative. He’s also very much heterosexual.

          Research shows that people overestimate their ability to pick out gay men, and that includes gay people.

  • Timothy

    So is it the case that here we see a text book example of a conservative YET AGAIN admitting that he’s spent decades on the wrong side of history? Will conservatives ever grow tired of repeating this same cycle over and over again on issue after issue?

  • http://www.rebeccamorn.com/mind BeccaM

    What I find fascinating is the upward trend on all the lines across the last decade. Even the oldsters — 12% change there, which is nothing to sneeze at. Especially since 2009, just look at those lines in all age groups.

    Gives me some hope that my wife and I might have our marriage recognized before one or the other of us dies.

  • OtterQueen

    My gut feeling is that DOMA will fall and marriage equality will be ok’d by the Supreme Court. I doubt it will be a 9-0 decision, and I’m curious to see what pretzel logic the dissenters will use to argue against it. I can’t think of one plausible reason to oppose it.

  • Indigo

    At age 71, i don’t share the anti-marriage equality sentiment. In fact, being gay, I’d be only too pleased if fortune were to smile so kindly on me but I have no prospects. It bothers me, sometimes, to realize that my “best” youthful days were before Stonewall. Hard to imagine!

  • cole3244

    just as the support for the gop is waning, they’re dying, they’re old, they’re angry. they’re mostly white, i am old and white, glad to see us go, better for america.

  • Randy

    How much is this guy paid to state the obvious? Wish I had that gig.

  • A reader in Colorado

    I’m always amazed that anyone not gay cares about gay marriage in a negative sense at all. And I’m not sure they would care, however old, if they were told that nobody cares what they think and to suck it up, because gay people exist in the world and if they don’t like it, too bad.

    They would have to adapt to seeing gay people out in public as being actually gay (gasp), and then life moves on.

    And I’m only convinced that most of the people who claim to care about it care in a way that only matters if you actually ask their opinion. But nobody in the real world is asking. And metaphorically speaking, only a very few would sacrifice their firstborn on the altar of stopping gay marriage. If someone were to ever tell me in the real world that they disapprove of my love life, hypothetically speaking, I would tell them that I disapprove of their spouse too, and that their opinion wasn’t asked.

    Maybe we should start remembering that nobody except pundits and pollsters care what people think on this, and that bigots who would take things so far as to actually matter in the real world aside from voting against it, are vanishingly few in number.

  • http://twitter.com/AlbertLewis7 Albert Lewis

    I’m an ‘old people’ (69) and I don’t have a problem with gay marriage. So I’m an outlier, I guess.

    • Tyke

      Nah. You (and I) are in the 33% favoring marriage equality and that’s not even outside +/- 1 sigma.

  • Finn

    I’m thinking the conservative majority will take the opportunity to narrowly decide based on a “state’s rights” line. In the past the SCOTUS would likely fall in line with emerging popular opinion, but we have an activist conservative court now, one that is less likely to look at the most recent election as sign of where to go.

    • Guest

      Probably not states rights. That won’t dispose of the DOMA issue. Decide narrowly is more like it, but on the grounds that the self-appointed guardians of righteousness in California and the House Republicans don’t have standing in their respective cases. Which leaves the law as it is — in California, Prop. 8 is dead and gay people can marry, and DOMA is dead in the circuits that have ruled against it. I don’t see this Court reaching out to make a broad pronouncement on equal protection. But the next case will join the issue. Sooner or later, some married couple from, say, Massachusetts will move to Texas, one of the spouses will die there, and the Texas courts will be required to administer the estate. Which is going to force the full faith and credit issue to the Supreme Court, which won’t be able to avoid it. But that’s not yet.

  • samiinh

    These are the same people who make up the audience for Fox Snooze and Hate Radio. Pathetic, but they’ve made a lot of people rich, like Pat Robertson, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, for example.

  • http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot

    “It’s old people.” Obviously never consulted me. I’m all for Federal bonding contracts, uniform throughout every state. The sooner the grip of religious theater loses its standing and is reduced to magical ceremonies the better.

    • Don Chandler

      Yes, Pat Robertson would make a very good minister of magic.

  • Phil

    “It’s not necessary for us to go here… let the democracy take care of this.”

    If that was the case, wouldn’t they have just refused to hear this case?

    • http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot

      “let the democracy take care of this” Yep, let’s remind people of color against ‘gay marriage’ ( IE. Prop 8) how that worked for them until the Civil Rights movement.

  • Outspoken1

    Too bad the US Supreme Court has lots of ‘old people. – old RELIGIOUS people – good ‘ol hateful religion, not the loving acceptance religion.

    • http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot

      They are not old in the usual sense—-they are immortal vampires.

  • http://blogvader.tumblr.com/ Blogvader

    A powerful statement, to be sure, but absolutely true. I saw something similar with my grandmother, who was an avowed racist her entire life. (Owing to her upbringing in rural West Virginia and Missouri.) I pitied her for what she lost in shunning the beautiful kids my family adopted, and I feel the same pity for folks who hate LGBT people.

    • http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot

      You are obviously a good person. I don’t pity them at all and want them marginalize at all costs if they have any power influence over laws that effect my life. Until then I am one for licking ass.

      • PrajnaSword

        He was talking about his grandmother. You just can’t disavow and give up on your relatives. He is describing a tragedy of his adopted kids being shunned by someone he loved, but who otherwise had a horrible mindset.

        • Jim Olson

          Oh, yes you can, and a lot of people would be a lot better off mentally and emotionally if they did exactly that. I have, and its been the best thing I ever did. Just because we’re related by blood doesn’t mean I have to love you and put up with your abusive homophobic bigotry.

          • rduke

            I’ll never understand why so many people think family is an obligation. It’s not, it’s a privilege. If your family is bad for your mental health, leave and don’t look back. They don’t get a free pass because you share blood.

        • http://adgitadiaries.com/ karmanot

          “You just can’t disavow and give up on your relatives.” The hell you can’t.

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