The Sociological Images blog recently put together some data on gay marriage support grouped by age bracket and ordered by a state’s overall support. The overall takeaways of the graph are pretty clear, the younger generation is considerably more supportive of gay marriage, even in states that are generally considered toxic to gay rights like Utah or Alabama.
Of course the other thing you can take away from this data is how each state feels about the gay marriage movement.
Massachusetts, the jockstrap state of gay marriage, came in as the #1 supportive state with an overall percentage of ~56%.
Missouri ranked at #35.
Not much of a surprise to many I would imagine. The interesting though is the breakdown between the age brackets (see the key on the above graph):
The younger age bracket of 18-29 is ~35% more supportive of gay marriage and if the vote was restricted to that younger demographic it appears gay marriage would pass. Even more amazing is the difference between the younger demo and the one right above them in our fair state, nearly 15% higher support rate!
So, real-world, what does this mean? To us the application of this data is simple. The teenager that’s being a dick and you really want to piss off, will more than likely shrug off your gay jokes, but conversely they will rile up that old asshole in front of you in Walmart without fail.