College Students to World: Gay Marriage is OK

There are a few things college "frosh" (because I happen to like gender neutral titles) like more than the rest of the nation. Drinking beer from a funnel while doing a hand stand, for example, and eating Cup o' Noodles for breakfast. And, it turns out, same-sex marriage.

According to a new survey by the Higher Education Research Institute, college frosh across the political spectrum support same-sex marriage way more than their grown-up world counterparts. About 65 percent of all college frosh think same-sex marriage should be legal, while only 39 percent of the "general population" feel the same way. I haven't taken a statistics class since, well, the mid '90s, but that seems like a pretty important gap.

But those are liberals, and liberal college kids are about as liberal as they come, right? Except for a close margin between "liberal conservative" collegiates and their non-collegiate counterparts. Even far right frosh support same-sex marriage at a greater rate than those far right conservatives out there in the working world — 24% to 14% to be exact, or as exact as a research poll can be.

So, these kids have just been shipped off to a new place, full of new people, new ideas and new experiences, and they're learning how to incorporate all of that into their world view while still maintaining some sense of themselves. And that, somehow, makes them more open to varying forms of human relationships. Huh. When I put it that way, they kind of sound like a decent barometer of the next generation's views toward same-sex marriage. Or maybe that whole "gay until graduation" thing is true, and their hearts and minds (and other body parts) are temporarily open to the idea of something other than that same old girl meets boy story.

So what gives? Evan Wolfson, of Freedom to Marry, explains it this way: "Young people who know gay people, talk with them, and examine why marriage matters in the lives of real people move in support." That makes sense, but I hate to close the debate without the input of "expert on all things" Glenn Stanton, of Focus on the Family, who recently made news with his well-informed commentary on the dressing habits of Shilo Jolie-Pitt. He's paying this research no mind. "It's a softer kind of conviction, not well formed or articulated in their minds. As [college students] get older ... they really start to see the world in a different way."

And if so, what happens at graduation? Do rising unemployment rates and looming student loans render an otherwise compassionate person suddenly intolerant? Could Glenn Stanton actually be ... right? I shudder to think. The good news is that, in usual Glenn Stanton form, he's just spewing rhetoric without any factual support. Right now, we don't really know what happens to college students' views on same-sex marriage after they graduate, because this research is uncharted territory.

All we know is that right now, in colleges across the country, the newest wave of voters is learning about economics and linguistics and history and philosophy, looking forward to the weekend and planning spring break in Cancun. They're not spending much time at all worrying about same-sex marriage. A+.

Photo credit: feserc