Gay marriage is the left's biggest culture war victory

Newlyweds.
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A new Gallup poll tells us that 70 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage, up from 60 percent in 2015 (when the Supreme Court declared it a constitutional right) — and up all the way from 27 percent when the polling firm first posed the question back in 1996. That's an increase in support of 43 percentage points — from around a quarter to more than two thirds of the country — in just 25 years. That makes gay marriage the left's greatest triumph in the culture war by far.

As journalist Matthew Yglesias notes in a tweet, Republicans should be grateful that Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy (author of the landmark decision Obergefell v. Hodges) took the issue out of the political arena, since the GOP otherwise would have found itself on the wrong side of a potent wedge issue for a long time to come. (Though one wonders how long, given that the new poll also shows that a solid majority of Republican voters — 55 percent — support gay marriage as well.)

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.