45% of Alaskans support same sex marriage

Approximately 45% of Alaskans support same sex marriage, according to data from recent polls, and that puts Alaska squarely in the center among the 50 states on our opinion of marriage equality.

When Congress debated and passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1994-6, only 25% of Americans - and 23% of Alaskans - said that gay and lesbian couples should have the right to marry. New polls show a 20% increase of support nationally, while local support has risen 22% in the last 15 years.

The New York Times gathered the information from several polls, created the graph in this post showing the increase of support state by state, and highlighted the main points of progress:

"A CNN poll this month found that a narrow majority of Americans supported same-sex marriage — the first poll to find majority support. Other poll results did not go that far, but still, on average, showed that support for gay marriage had risen to 45 percent or more (with the rest either opposed or undecided)...

In 2008, the year Proposition 8 was approved, just under half of Californians supported same-sex marriage. Today, according to polls, more than half do. A similar shift has occurred in Maine, where same-sex marriage legislation was repealed by ballot measure in 2009.

In both New York and New Jersey, where state legislatures in the past have defeated proposals to allow same-sex marriage, a majority now support it.

And support for same-sex marriage has increased in all states, even in relatively conservative places like Wyoming and Kentucky. Only Utah is still below where national support stood in 1996."

Alaska is a "relatively conservative place" with an independent streak. The opponents to last summer's job and housing ordinance scared a few assembly members into thinking that Anchorage isn't ready for gay rights. But polls like these show that a shrinking percent of Alaskans oppose LGBT equality, even on marriage.

The polls also show that people under age 30 in all regions support marriage equality more than older adults do, so the trend towards equality will continue, in Alaska and across the nation. We've reached the tipping point!