New Poll Finds Majority Of Ireland Supports Legalizing Gay Marriage, New Book Suggests More Americans Consider Gay And Lesbian Couples With Children To Comprise A Family, Minnesota Roman Catholic Bishops Prepare To Mount Battle Against Gay Marriage

The Irish Times today on a new poll conducted in conjunction with Behaviour & Attitudes that reveals more than 67-percent of those surveyed believe that gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to legally marry, while 60-percent do not believe that civil partnerships undermine the traditional institution of marriage. Those numbers have energized gay rights advocates in Ireland, Moninne Griffith, the director of Marriage Equality, saying that the results show the Irish public to be “keenly aware that current exclusion of lesbian and gay couples from civil marriage is deeply unfair and doesn’t make any sense in today’s Ireland.” She added that the poll’s finding that 91-percent of those surveyed would not think less of a person if they were lesbian or gay indicates a sea change of cultural attitudes. “Simply put,” she said, “being gay or lesbian isn’t such a big taboo, and neither is the subject of gay and lesbian couples getting married. The Irish people are clearly ready for it, so the question must be asked, why do the Irish Government persist in denying the human right to marry?”

Counted Out: Same-Sex Relations and American’s Definitions of Family, a new book published today by Indiana University professor Brian Powell, contains the results of three phone surveys completed in 2003, 2006, and 2010, that reveal a majority of Americans now say that their definition of family includes same sex couples with children, as well as married gay and lesbian couples. The New York Times adds that the book indicates at the same time a majority of Americans do not consider unmarried, cohabiting couples, either gay or straight, to be family, unless they have children. According to the author, Powell, “This is not because more people are gay now than in 2003. This indicates a more open social environment in which individuals now feel more comfortable discussing and acknowledging sexuality. Ironically with all the anti-gay initiatives, all of a sudden people were saying the word ‘gay’ out loud. Just the discussion about it made people more comfortable.” The book offers a conclusion that framing the debate on granted full equality to gays and lesbians, including marriage, might best be served in making an argument of what is in “the best interests of the child.”

The Minnesota Independent reports that some (but not all) of the state’s Roman Catholic bishops are preparing to mount an anti-gay marriage campaign, Bishop John Quinn of the Winona Diocese distributing a newsletter to parishioners that read in part “The bishops of Minnesota are alarmed by the continuing attacks on the institution of marriage, and we are taking action.” He added that the diocese will be providing parishes with a DVD that provides “more detail about the Church’s teaching on marriage and about the possible effects that a same sex marriage policy would have in our state.” Quinn wrote that traditional marriage is under attack, “the most threatening now are efforts to legalize ‘same sex’ or ‘gay’ marriage, that is, marriage between two men or between two women,” adding “I hope that you will become of the thousands of Catholics who have contacted legislators and told them marriage is a lifetime relationship between one man and one woman.”