Significant increase in support for California marriage amendment comes from young people.

A recent poll shows a surge of support for the Proposition 8, the California marriage amendment. Prop 8 would enshrine marriage between a man and a woman in the California Constitution. It's driven by the support of young voters. This is interesting because young voters are usually more amenable to homosexual marriage than older voters are.

47% of voters now support the amendment versus 42% of voters who opposed the amendment. Eleven days earlier opposition to the amendment had a 5 percent lead.

A news story on the poll

A new CBS 5 poll finds that California's Proposition 8 has picked up support in the wake of a television ad campaign that features footage of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom proclaiming same-sex marriage is here to stay "whether you like it or not."

The poll conducted for CBS 5 by SurveyUSA indicates that support for the measure to ban gay marriage has grown among voters in the state over an eleven day period -- most especially among young voters.

According to the poll, likely California voters overall now favor passage of Proposition 8 by a five-point margin, 47 percent to 42 percent. Ironically, a CBS 5 poll eleven days prior found a five-point margin in favor of the measure's opponents.

The only demographic group to significantly change their views during this period were younger voters -- considered the hardest to poll and the most unpredictable voters -- who now support the measure after previously opposing it.

Historically, polls on marriage amendment initiatives under report the actual support for the amendments. It's not politically correct to oppose homosexual marriage so many people will not disclose their true feelings on the issue, except in the privacy of the voting booth.

While most of the media attention is focused on the presidential and congressional elections, the consequences of California embracing homosexual marriage may well be more consequential to the culture than those elected to political office this time around. As marriage goes so goes the culture and society. Marriage and family breakdown are currently at crisis levels. Legally defining marriage between a man and a woman out of existence would only accelerate the crisis. No society has ever survived which embraced homosexual relationships which is just what homosexual marriage laws would do.