Tipping point?

Gay marriage started in Massachusetts (wow!) 5 years ago. It was in California, briefly, last year, though the vote to ban it would likely be different today. Connecticut, Iowa, and Vermont approved it within the last couple months. Soon New Hampshire and Maine.

And now an ABC/Washington Post poll says that 49% of Americans are in favor of gay marriage and only 46% opposed! Even the support among Republicans has tripled (10% to 30%) since 2004.

Now for the fine print: The margin of error is 3%. That means the two sides of the gay marriage debate are statistically tied. Even so, that's wonderful news.

Have we reached a tipping point in public opinion? For those of you who don't know physics or sociology, a tipping point is a point within a process where the rate of change increases dramatically. The example which first defined the term was white neighborhoods in the 1950s and '60s in which a small number of black families were tolerated, but when "one too many" black families moved in, all of the white families moved out in what is known as white flight. Real estate agents exploited this phenomenon in Detroit in the '50s to have a constant supply of houses to sell. At that time flipping meant converting a block from all white to all black (resulting in a sales commission for each house).

That ABC/Washington Post poll also asked other questions and shows a mix of progressive and conservative trends:
* Support for legalizing marijuana has increased.
* Support for amnesty of illegal immigrants has increased.
* Support for regulation of greenhouse gasses has increased.
* Support for increased gun control has decreased.