March 8, 2013

A Majority of Young Republicans Support Gay Marriage

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Supporters of gay marriage may not be welcome at CPAC, but they’re making huge strides everywhere else. On Thursday, Jan van Lohuizen and Joel Benenson, top campaign pollsters respectively for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, released a new study on attitudes toward marriage equality, based on 2012 exit poll data. The short of it: Even young Republicans think conservatives are fighting a losing battle.

While 53 percent of eligible voters support marriage equality, 83 percent believe same-sex marriage will be legal nationwide within five to 10 years. And for the first time, a majority of Republicans under the age of 30 support marriage equality at the state level. (Fifty-one percent do.) According to Benenson and Lohuizen, the only major demographic that still opposes same-sex marriage is white, evangelical Christians.

The study, commissioned by the pro-marriage equality group Young Conservatives for the Freedom to Marry, didn’t get around to asking eligible voters about their attitudes toward sushi, but we think we have a pretty good idea where they fall:

 

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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