Who favors same-sex marriage?

It's getting to the point where you don't need to ask someone's opinion on same-sex marriage. A person's age, address, and party affiliation get you close enough to the answer. A Fox News poll shows how neatly divided the country is on the question, but also with some surprising movement:

"Those most likely to support allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally include liberals (59 percent), Democrats (56 percent), Northeasterners (55 percent), and those under age 30 (52 percent).

"Conservatives (38 percent), Republicans (37 percent), those ages 65 and over (37 percent), and those with less than a college education (36 percent) are among those most likely to say there should be no legal recognition for same-sex relationships.

"Among those who attend religious services regularly, 20 percent believe gays should be allowed to marry legally, 31 percent support a legal partnership and 43 percent believe there should be no legal recognition.

"For those who attend services rarely, 44 percent support legal marriage, 31 percent legal partnership and 20 percent no legal recognition."

Notice the predictable groups in favor: liberals, Democrats, Northeasterners, and the young. All of those groups are within seven points of each other. On the other hand, conservatives, Republicans, retirees, and the uneducated are all within two points of each other.

One might conclude from the "less than a college education" figure that training in the art of thinking along with access to relevant information leads one to the more liberal view on this question. But I think it is more indicative of the politically charged state of higher education in our country these days. According to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, it is a sad fact that people leave many colleges and universities, even the most prestigious ones, knowing less about government and politics than they knew upon entering.

The national figures for opposition to same-sex marriage is 37 percent for and 57 percent against. While that looks decisive, the figures below the surface paint a different picture. From the summer of 2004 through 2006 and 2009 to now, the national figures for supporting same-sex marriage have climbed dramatically from 25 percent to 27 percent to 33 percent to 37 percent. Correspondingly, between the summers of '06 and '09, support for "no legal recognition" fell 10 points from 39 percent to 29 percent. That is a significant cultural shift.

It is also striking that legally recognizing unions between people of the same sex has the approval of only 19 percent of Republicans. One wonders how many of those are libertarians and social liberals within the party. That level of support is almost the same as the 20 percent support among people "who attend religious services regularly." That church-attending group gives 31 percent of its support to some sort of legally recognized partnership, lower than the Republican figure of 39 percent.

Incidentally, it would be wrong to suspect that the poll is biased against same-sex marriage just because it is from Fox News. I have strong suspicions that the network fully supports the idea and actively promotes it. It frequently runs stories on the subject to the point that I cannot let my children watch the cable channel's shows without great caution. Yes, news on this subject is event-driven, but their stories always feature multiple, successive images of same-sex couples "marrying," kissing, hugging, etc. All of this seems calculated to desensitize us to what traditionally would have shocked the average viewer, and to convince us of its normalcy and the inevitable legalization and social acceptance of the practice.

CBS reporter Lesley Stahl once did a story on Ronald Reagan that was highly critical of the president. Michael Deaver, Reagan's deputy chief of staff for image-crafting, phoned her up and thanked her for it. She was confused, of course. But he pointed out that the images were all quite flattering, and that is all that people would remember.

Lesson learned. And Fox knows it. Perhaps that accounts for some of the shift.