Well, That's Confusing

A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll included a segment about gay marriage. The first part was a fairly simple "do you favor it?" question, with very nice 53% to 39% numbers in favor. But here's the second question: "Do you think each state should make its own laws on same-sex marriage, or do you think the federal government should make one law for all states on this issue?" That's... very confusing. When you talk about "making laws" in this way, it's natural to assume you mean legislative action, and it's absolutely impossible for Congress to pass a law establishing gay marriage in every state. There's the whole anti-gay marriage constitutional Amendment thing, but when people want to poll on that they typically do it in so many words. Now, what could actually happen that would make state laws on gay marriage pretty much uniform would be a Supreme Court decision declaring the right not to have marriage laws discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation protected by the Constitution. But it doesn't exactly sound like that's what this poll is talking about, either! (Also, that would still allow states to write their own marriage laws for themselves, they just couldn't write those laws in a way that was picky about the sexes of the two marrying persons.) So it's really unclear what they mean: an Act of Congress one way or the other, which is completely impossible, a constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage nationwide, or a Supreme Court case requiring gay marriage nationwide? It's unclear, and that makes it hard to interpret the results. For what it's worth, 49% want states to make their own laws, and 46% want one federal law. But I have no idea what that means! Do you?