Attitudes to same-sex marriage appear more malleable than we might have expected. In a 2013 survey by US think-tank the Pew Research Center, 28% of US supporters of same-sex marriage reported they had changed their mind on the issue. Most often change occurred as a result of contact with someone personally affected by it. [...]
The idea of nature is rhetorically powerful, and the two sides in the Irish same-sex marriage debate harnessed it to advance diverging causes. Opponents focused their objections on the supposed unnaturalness of same-sex parenthood, marriage and gender relations. Proponents advocated for a more inclusive sense of what is natural. [...]
This research indicates that much of the opposition to same-sex marriage is grounded in sexual prejudice, despite that opposition often being publicly justified on different grounds. But, a modest proportion of conservatives’ opposition was not explained by prejudice. This fraction may reflect principled objections based on conservative political or religious beliefs.
One account of political conservatism proposes that it rests on two pillars: resistance to change and opposition to equality. The first values the preservation of tradition and social order. The second maintains that differences in social outcomes are natural and inevitable.
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