George Will: 'Quite literally, opposition to gay marriage is dying'

When pundits on ABC's "This Week" Sunday discussed recent news that the Supreme Court would take up two major gay marriage cases -- challenges to the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California's Prop 8 -- conservative commentator George Will issued a blunt characterization of same-sex marriage's opponents.

There is something like an emerging consensus. Quite literally, the opposition to gay marriage is dying. It’s old people.

According to a Politico poll out Sunday, Will is right in saying that older Americans are less likely to support gay marriage. The poll said that while 63 percent of 18 to 29 year-old supported same-sex marriage, only three in 10 seniors support it.

Here's Will's remarks on the subject in full, via Queerty:

This decision by the Supreme Court came 31 days after an Election Day in which three states for the first time endorsed same-sex marriage at the ballot box —never happened before—Maine, Maryland, and the state of Washington.

Now, the question is, how will that influence the court? It could make them say it’s not necessary for us to go here. They don’t want to do what they did with abortion. The country was having a constructive accommodation on abortion, liberalizing abortion laws. The court yanked the subject out of democratic discourse and embittered the argument. They may say we don’t want to do that, we can just let the democracy take care of this.

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On the other hand, they could say it’s now safe to look at this because there is something like an emerging consensus. Quite literally, the opposition to gay marriage is dying. It’s old people.

Republican strategist Mary Matalin added that unmarried heterosexuals with babies are "irrefutably more problematic for our culture than homosexuals getting married."