Support for the recent Supreme Court
ruling striking down state bans on gay marriage in all 50 states
outweighed criticism 4 to 1 on Twitter.
CrowdFlower analyzed 25,000 tweets
about the issue posted in the days surrounding the ruling.
It found that 80 percent of the
messages were positive.
Of the 20 percent opposed to the
ruling, 52 percent cited religious beliefs, 19 percent “Americans
values,” and 15 percent “general disgust.”
Women (86%) were more supportive than
men (72%).
For all states with a significant
volume of tweets, the majority of sentiment was positive. Alabama
had the highest number of negative tweets at 30 percent.
“We went into this exercise bracing
for a lot of negativity,” said
Justin Tenuto, content manager at CrowdFlower. “We bet wrong.
In the days after the Supreme Court granted equal marriage rights to
same-sex couples, America resoundingly applauded. And when you
consider where we were as a country in the early 90s, that's nothing
short of amazing.”