The Southern Equality campaign continues its swing through Mississippi. Last week, same-sex couples tried to get marriage licenses in the southern part of the state. On Wednesday, a couple that includes a member of the Air Force Reserve got turned down in tiny Poplarville.
Today in the capital city of Jackson, more couples asked for the right to marry. That’s one of them, pictured above (photo by Jessica Bowman of WLBT).
Back in 2004, Mississippi voters put a ban on gay couples marrying in their state constitution. Every single county voted for the ban, with 86 percent of voters saying no to marriage equality — the most among any state to have put that question on the ballot. Mississippians remain opposed to the idea, in proportions that are oddly inverse to what pollsters are finding nationwide. But the bigger news, I think, is how much opinions have changed. New bipartisan polling (pdf) from the Human Rights Campaign finds that 55 percent of voters now object to marriage equality, a fall of 31 points. Among people under 30, support for marriage equality gets a majority of 58 percent.









