same-sex marriage

The Panetta Institute of Public Policy, located at California State University - Monterey Bay, has sponsored an annual survey of U.S. college students since 2001.

This year's survey results revealed that students continue to be preoccupied with economic worries, though they bear much more positive attitudes this year than they have in the past. The executive summary is below:

• College students continue to express confidence in Barack Obama, and rate his performance much more highly than the country as a whole: 66% approve of his job performance, compared with 48% of the public in a contemporaneous survey. However, Obama’s approval rating has declined 9 points since his 2009 “honeymoon” period.
• While two-thirds (66%) believe that Barack Obama understands college students’ needs, just 21% say the same of Sarah Palin.
• College students continue to lean toward the Democrats as they consider the 2010 off-year elections, but there are clear warning signs for Democrats in this poll. Students are paying far less attention to this election than they were the historic 2008 presidential race (44% now, 82% in 2008) raising questions about college students’ likely turnout in November. Moreover, Democrats’ 12-point margin in the generic congressional ballot is much smaller than the 26-point lead they enjoyed at the same point in the 2006 cycle, and only slightly better than in 2002 (seven points) when Republicans elected congressional majorities.
• Students continue to view the economy as weak (83% say it is not so good or poor), and although they are not yet in the workforce, fully 40% say they have been personally affected a great deal or quite a bit by the economic downturn.
• Students’ confidence in their ability to find an acceptable job after graduation, which declined in 2009, remains low: 36% of college students, including 45% of seniors, are just somewhat or not confident that they will find an acceptable job. The 64% expressing confidence is the lowest level the survey has ever recorded.
• Interest in a government career continues to rise among college students, with 42% now very or fairly interested!the highest mark we have ever recorded. While the recession may have contributed to this rise, there has been a fairly steady increase in this measure over the past nine years.
• The survey reveals a startling gender gap when it comes to interest in an eventual run for office, with men being twice as interested in running for federal office than women (men 36%, women 18%), and also more interested in pursuing local or state office (men 43%, women 28%).
• College students’ support for same-sex marriage continues to grow, now reaching 65%, compared with just 52% in 2004.
• Students support a much more active government than the public as a whole, and they rate government’s performance much more highly. By 51% to 30%, they say government should do more to solve problems, while among the public overall, 43% say government should do more and 48% believe the government is doing too many things.

Students are ostensibly still liberal in their political views according to this survey, but their enthusiasm for participating in the 2010 midterms and supporting the Democratic Party is waning, along with their approval of President Obama. Not waning at all is their concern regarding their ability to find jobs after college.

This poll provides more evidence that the issue of job creation should be paramount for Democrats if they wish to attract college students (and young people) by this November.

Pew has a new survey out about the number of Millennials who have been raised among two parent families. Six in ten Millennials identify growing up in two parent homes, but that number is down compared to generations before it.

"A smaller share than was the case with older generations. That compares with 71% of Gen Xers, 85% of Boomers and 87% of Silents. Roughly one quarter of Millennials (24%) say their parents were divorced or separated, and 11% say their parents were never married (2% say their parents were widowed and 1% did not answer the question). Still, in weighing their own life priorities, Millennials (like older adults) place parenthood and marriage far above career and financial success. But they aren't rushing to the altar -- just one-in-five Millennials (21%) are married now. Still, they get along well with their parents. Looking back at their teenage years, Millennials report having had fewer spats with mom or dad than older adults say they had with their own parents when they were growing up. And now, hard times have kept a significant share of adult Millennials and their parents under the same roof. About one-in-eight older Millennials (ages 22 and older) say they've "boomeranged" back to a parent's home because of the recession."

You have to wonder if this is one of the main reasons that young people believe in marriage for everyone. Because LGBT couples couldn't screw it up any worse than Millennials' straight parents, right? Young people are also more likely to get married later in life. Some of that I think has to do with the economy, higher ed being more of a requirement than an option, and an increase in rejections of religious institutions. But given this new data I wonder the extent to which the increase in single parent homes has impacted Millennials as well.

If you don't read Onely.org you're missing out. They advocate the single life which isn't easy to do in this society so focused on that big wedding and that equally big divorce before that big second marriage in Vegas!

This week they profiled a blog that is unbelievable and I didn't know existed - as part of their series Some like it Single. The blog Marrying Millennial which focuses on tearing apart the campaign currently trying to persuade young people to get married. Spearheaded by the Brookings Institute, the National Marriage Resource Center, and the Bush Administrations Department of Health and Human Services the campaign has worked in cahoots to fund The Healthy Marriage Initiative or further to federally fund ad campaigns to uphold marriage not to mention including marriage incentives as part of a welfare reform package.

The Marrying Millennial blogger isn't buying it

"Your generation has given me no reason to subject myself to marriage. Your generation has increased the divorce rate to higher than 50%. I have watched your rushed/forced marriages fail over and over again. You have told me to educate myself and establish myself, and I am doing so. Therefore marriage will have to wait until its most convenient for me and my life plans. Your marriages are taxed. They are formalized. They require red tape, and signatures, and penalties. . . I have learned from your mistakes."

Its no wonder our generation has been so skeptical of conservatives! Clearly paying people to get married and pretend to love each other and have a family doesn't actually make it happen. Who knew!?

Onely's review of Marrying Millennial is glowing and I couldn't say it better myself:

"She points out that the campaign’s narrow-mindedness and lack of innovation will actually turn young people away from marriage, that the campaign short-circuits young people’s attempts at exploration and self-expansion, and that believing in God and religion doesn’t mean that you have to think marriage is the magic cure for all social ills. In one of her most frightening posts, she shows the obscene amounts of money that the current director of the National Healthy Marriage Resource Center (NHMRC), Mary Myrick, once charged to the Oklahoma government when she was a consultant to their state marriage initiative in 2001."

Last month Bella DePaulo at the Huffington Post reported that there is indeed an HHS ad campaign designed to encourage marriage. No word yet on whether Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius would continue the program under the Obama Administration but something tells me that she might have a few revisions or perhaps even some better more effective ways of spending that money.

DePaulo quotes a USA Today piece which says

"Research suggests a bevy of benefits for those who marry, including better health, greater wealth and more happiness for the couple, and improved well-being for children."

And then proceeds to debunk that statement with evidence of wealth coming from federal tax dollars which could equate happiness and high income brackets with better health care which disproportionately helps those who can afford it. Of course they are wealthier and healthier and richer! Our government is giving them the tax structure to ensure its so.

Onely further requests of anyone who might be researching projects like this if there is a breakdown of federal funds allocated both to the ad campaign, marriage incentives given to couples, and how much in total the project cost. I second that request calling on a top to bottom review of the extensive amount of waste spent on this project and would further like to ask that Dr. James Dobsen send all proceeds from his Focus on Marriage seminars to pay the tax payers back.

Marrying Millennial posted a blog Wednesday where she announced she was combing through Recovery.gov (the Obama Administration's effort of creating transparency so tax payers can see where their money is going). She contacted the Obama Administration asking questions but isn't holding her breath about a reply.. after all she's still waiting for a response to the letters her high school class sent to President Bush in 2005 asking him about the project.

On a hometown note she looked through Mary Myrick's Public Strategies, Inc website for information about who this woman is and what she's up to.

"Public Strategies Inc. is Mary's public relations firm that manages the accounts for pro-marriage campaigns. Mary is very involved in making money off of selling marriage." . .

"Not only does she own her own firm, but she is the founder and president of Oklahoma Marriage Initiative."

And here she is on Facebook! She's so forward thinking! Oddly enough she's friends with Jim Roth the former Corporations Commissioner in Oklahoma and openly gay elected official. I bet Jim believes in marriage... but it might not be the kind Mary likes...

Either way Marrying Millennial is a brilliant project whether you want the big white dress or not. Stay tuned to see what the feds do when they find out how much money has been going to these programs.

Disclaimer: Please note there is no coincidental meaning behind this being posted on the week Mike is getting married. I fully support his and Leah's union and wish them all the best on such a wonderful life together.

Update: I don't pretend to believe that Huntsman's economic policies are going to be appealing to Millennials. But even so, the GOP is in such a bad strategic spot right now that merely talking about the economy represents a turn in the right direction. --Craig

In my last post, I used Frank Rich's column to point out the triumph of the economy over social and cultural issues in the national political conversation. In this one, I'll use a Times story on Gov. Jon Huntsman in Utah to look at a way forward among youth for the GOP, now handcuffed thanks to their inability to pursue social issues.

The majority of Utah's population is affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (including Huntsman himself). Because of the church's staunch stance against the use of alcohol, the state's liquor laws have been extremely restrictive since the 1960s. But Huntsman is one Republican who wasn't afraid to sacrifice a social issue for the betterment of the economy.

The old law [in Utah]... required anyone who walked into a bar to first buy a membership card to the bar’s “private club,” which typically cost $10 to $15. Tourism and restaurant lobby groups complained for years, saying the law made the state seem unwelcoming to outsiders.

“One of our economic pillars is travel and tourism,” said Mr. Huntsman, whose family roots in Utah — and family fortune in the Huntman Corporation, a chemical manufacturer — made him prominent here long before he first ran for governor in 2004. “And if that’s going to be hampered by these jaded and old-fashioned views, then that’s going to impact the cash register and therefore our ability to fund the things that most citizens care deeply about, like our schools.”

Talk like that, at a time of economic pain and budget turmoil, gave the liquor proposal legs, and led to a compromise that would abolish the private club system while tightening rules intended to keep under-age drinkers out of the bars. It is the most sweeping overhaul of state alcohol law since the 1960s.

So here's the first lesson Huntsman is teaching his fellow Republicans, similar to what I argued in my earlier post -- in economic hardship, cultural issues are less important. While one might think this move on Huntsman's part would be political suicide in Utah, it was not. Huntsman's adjustment to the liquor law was made to push Utah's tourism-driven economy forward; the legislature met him halfway because they know their constituents care about their own economic situations, not whether people might be drinking alcohol miles away from them.

“It’s been a kindler, gentler session,” said State Representative David Litvack, a Democrat from Salt Lake City and the minority leader in the House. “Where we are economically has made a big difference.”

And then we get to the GOP's second lesson from Huntsman: If you're going to talk about social issues, moderation is the name of the game.

But there are hints that Mr. Huntsman’s message of moderation, especially given his popularity in the state, is resonating beyond the Legislature and drawing support among the broader population.

In February, for example, when the governor announced that he would support civil unions for gay couples, many politicians here braced for a backlash.

Utah voters had approved an amendment to the State Constitution in 2004 banning same-sex marriage or anything that might approximate it, and one opinion poll by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research in January said 70 percent of Utahans still opposed civil unions.

But the backlash never developed. Indeed, after his announcement, a poll by Deseret News/KSL-TV found that two-thirds of respondents said their opinion of the governor had not changed or had become more positive because of his position on civil unions. Over all, the governor’s approval rating had barely budged, with 80 percent of residents saying they thought he was doing a good job.

While civil unions are hella anachronistic in many parts of the country, the statistic above illustrates the big step Huntsman was taking when he announced his support for civil unions for gay couples. But again, in a tough economy, the public doesn't have the luxury of worrying about social issues.

What does this have to do with young people? Over the past couple weeks, many of the writers at FM have explored the impact of the economy on youth. Faced with student loan debt or in a financial situation that kept them from going to college in the first place, many young people are squeezed more each day in the job market, either being laid off or unable to find a steady job to pay the bills. Many are risking everything to hone entrepreneurial skills that might get them quick cash. If a Republican candidate can understand this and sacrifice conservative stands on social issues for some straight talk on the economy, like Huntsman has begun to do in Utah, the GOP might gain some relevance among youth.

Unfortunately, though, party boss Rush Limbaugh and his machine still control the GOP, and they'd rather become irrelevant among today's youth than give up dividing people.

So I'm sure you heard. The good state of California is now performing same-sex marriages, after the state's Supreme Court struck down a state ban in May.

Well, I'm happy to report back to those around the world who might have been concerned about us here in California: So far as i can tell -- contrary to the dire predictions we may have heard -- the earth has not yet opened up and swallowed the whole state into a pit of eternal hellfire. Which is great, because honestly I'm not that into hellfire. Hellfire seems totally uncool.

In fact, as I look around, what strikes me the most is that the whole thing seems so.... so..... so normal.

Here's what appears to have been happening, and hold onto your hats while I say this.... It appears that couples who love each other -- people who have shared lives, families, and homes for years -- are now officially getting married.

Wild, I know.

I'm not sure exactly what I would have expected. Some sort of crazed marriage bonanza? A massive gay marriage stampede through the streets? Something else with the word bonanza in it?

Nope, not really. Pretty much it's just people who are happy to get the chance to say 'they do' to the one they love, and be recognized just like everyone else for it, with peace and dignity.

It makes me proud to be a Californian.

Maybe what gay marriage opponents have been missing for the last several years was a strong dose of who-the-hell-cares. You know what I mean? Relax, friends. Unclench. Look around. The world is still standing. More people who love each other are married. Sounds pretty good if you ask me.

Sure, it's possible that some coalition of concerned party poopers will stir up enough fear and ugliness to pass this constitutional amendment in November and shut down the festivities. (And certainly, we all need to step up and work against that. Definitely not into party poopers. Party poopers are way uncool.)

But I'll tell you what gives me a sense of peace about this issue.

It's inevitable. Like it or not, our country's attitudes are changing. It's unstoppable, and it's happening. And everyone, on all sides of the debate, knows it.

Just take a look at this. Right after the Supreme Court decision, a new Field Poll showed that for the first time since they started measuring back in the 70's, a majority of Californians now agree that "gay people have the right to marry" (51 to 42 percent.) And for voters under 30, the percent in support jumps to 68%. That's a blowout. Go us.

So yes, they might pass an amendment in california to outlaw same-sex marriage for a while. Sure, other states might go all reactionary and furrow their brows and bristle out their mustaches (yes, states can have mustaches, why not.) True, we could be in for a battery of reactionary laws and amendments and hyperventilating hand-wringing from the lock-your-doors brigade.

But progress will continue to steadily, inevitably, irreversibly march on. Those amendments will be overturned, laws will be fixed, and bristled mustaches will be soothed. And a few decades from now, we'll look back and wonder... what took us so damn long? And our kids will incredulously ask us how anyone thought such overt discrimination against our friends and neighbors was ever acceptable.

And one day, we will get to look back and tell our own stories about this time -- this time right now -- when we were truly proud to live in the state of California.

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Sam Dorman is the Managing Director of the League of Young Voters