Voters Question Obama's Gay-Marriage Motivation

Most voters are OK with President Obama's stand on gay marriage but they're pretty skeptical about the reason for the "evolution," the latest New York Times/CBS poll finds. Some 67%—including a majority of independents and almost half of Democrats—believe Obama made the announcement "mostly for political reasons," while only 24% believe he came out in favor of gay marriage "mostly because he thinks it is right." Echoing an earlier Gallup poll, the new poll found that some 60% of voters say the announcement won't affect how they vote.

Some 25%—including 43% of Republicans and 22% of independents—say it makes them less likely to vote for Obama, while 16% say it makes them more likely to choose him. The poll found 38% of Americans in favor of same-sex marriage, a proportion that is rising along with the number of people who say they have a relative, close friend, or colleague who is gay, which has risen to 69% from 44% nine years ago. “I might have been against it a long time ago, but then after meeting people who were gay, I changed my mind and had a different position," a 70-year-old Democrat in Kentucky told pollsters. (More gay marriage stories.)