Fate
I don't believe polling from 1958 is all that credible
Why not?
Math hasn't changed. If 3,000 people were surveyed over the phone in 1948, the probabilities would be identical to today......with the caveat that today pollsters need to use both landline data bases and mobile... And that today, completed call ratios have declined a little.
The only difference in the question is that in 1958 they asked about marriage between whites and colored people...
Gallup rates only a C+ rating on 538, which isn't great. But the difference Gallup found 4% to 87% isn't going to be explained away by the polling technique or sampling techniques. They remained constant.
Your nation did not accept marriage between races in the 50s. Today it does.
Acceptance of Gay marriage was around 4% when polling firms asked about it first in the early 90s...by the way...
Its over 60% now.... and growing in only one direction despite the backlash from religious conservatives.
If this is a battle between religion and greater tolerance, which it seems to be, the other intersting trend is the declining influence of religion.
Americans' confidence in the church and organized religion has fallen dramatically over the past four decades, hitting an all-time low this year of 42%. Confidence in religion began faltering in the 1980s, while the sharpest decline occurred between 2001 and 2002 as the Roman Catholic Church grappled with a major sexual abuse scandal. Since then, periodic improvements have proved temporary, and it has continued to ratchet lower.
The church and organized religion is losing its footing as a pillar of moral leadership in the nation's culture.
If there is a war on Christianity in the US, its being lost from the inside.