Poll: Obama Gay Marriage News Widens Support, Opposition Gap To New Record

Two new polls find while President Obama‘s embrace of same-sex marriage may have not garnered him a bump — or drop — in his own polling numbers, it has widened the gap between support for and opposition against marriage equality to a new record.

READ: Why The New ‘Obama Gay Marriage Support Is A Wash’ Meme Is Wrong

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll puts nationwide support at the highest level ever for that poll, with 53% of Americans supporting the right of same-sex couples to marry. The poll also places opposition against marriage equality at the lowest level, 39%.

Dramatically, the 53% support is a huge jump. Six years ago, only 36% of Americans supported gay marriage.

There are now close to a dozen national, credible polls that find majority support (or, plurality approaching majority support) for marriage equality.

Like this week’s NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, the Washington Post-ABC News poll finds a majority of Americans say the President’s decision has no impact on the choice of candidate. 55% in the WaPo-ABC poll, 62% in the NBC/WSJ poll.

“The poll also finds that 59 percent of African Americans say they support same-sex marriage, up from an average of 41 percent in polls leading up to Obama’s announcement of his new position on the matter. Though statistically significant, it is a tentative result because of the relatively small sample of black voters in the poll,” the Washington Post reports today.

Predictably, NOM, the National Organization For Marriage, is defiant and claims the Washington Post-ABC News poll is flawed.

“Frank Schubert, national political director for the National Organization for Marriage, a prominent group opposed to same-sex marriage, called into question the accuracy of the poll, noting that polls frequently have overestimated support for same-sex unions in advance of votes on state ballot measures,” the Post reports:

“There is not a chance in God’s green earth that African Americans support same-sex marriage,” he said, drawing from his experience organizing anti-same-sex marriage campaigns in California, Iowa, Maine and North Carolina. The president’s endorsement has likely “created a lot of angst and conflict in that community, but his opinion of same-sex marriage is not going to be changing the opinion of African Americans in a significant way.”

In the past week, the NAACP, actor Will Smith, and rappers Jay-Z and 50 Cent have all joined the president in declaring support for same-sex marriage.

NOM’s corporate policy is to drive a race wedge into the politics of marriage and attempt to make being anti-marriage equality a badge of honor.