New polls show Proposition 8, the California ballot measure banning gay marriage, winning in November by a margin of four to five points. This is a dramatic shift from what they’d indicated in recent months and up to as late as a week ago, when one of the same polls showed Prop 8 losing by the same margin. Since then, Prop 8 backers have blanketed the state’s airwaves with an ad featuring San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom proclaiming in a speech that gay marriage will happen “whether you like it or not”–a comment that may play on unfounded fears of government intervention. Inexplicably, one poll attributed much of the recent shift to young voters, who have typically been the most stalwart supporters of gay rights. In what’s shaping up to be one of the costliest ballot measures on a cultural issue in state history, Prop 8 backers complain that they’re being outspent, with a significant amount of Prop 8 funding coming from the Mormon Church. As I’ve written in the past, the gay marriage issue poses little if any threat to Barack Obama this year. Even so, the recent movement in the polls indicates that support for gay rights remains disturbingly malleable.
