Bear with me for this.
Last night I had occasion to attend a fundraiser for a PAC for an important Democrat. When this Democrat was running for the office currently held, s/he drew the line against marriage equality. S/he had already supported civil unions and legal rights, but was uncomfortable with going further. Yet in the past year s/he has moved to fully support marriage equality.
I asked why and got a two-part answer
S/he was already bothered by those opposing, either because they were afraid of their conservative base even though they knew equality was the right thing, and
some of those opposing were simply hateful, to the point of wanting to make the jurisdiction this person represents hostile to LGBT people and drive them out.
But of greater importance was this: the children, including one who is an active duty military officer, thought time was past due for full inclusion of LGBT in American society, including giving the full rights and recognition of marriage.
The children in this case are adults. Yet I can note that when I have surveyed my students over almost a decade (starting with all the Republican-initiated efforts in the 2004 cycle to generate more conservative voters to reelect GWBush) that each year the percentage willing to accept marriage equality has increased, even more quickly than acceptance among the American people as a whole.
Younger people may be less enamored of politics than I might want, but they increasingly downright reject hatred and discrimination.
On this issue - and on issues like immigration reform - increasingly young people view the Republican Party as hateful and discriminatory.
Which is why the Republican Party - unless it dramatically changes its viewpoints on a number of issues - faces a dismal future.
Make of this what you will.
Peace.