Focus on the Family Leader Sees Likely Loss on Marriage

Jim Daly, the president and CEO of Focus on the Family, which funds attacks against marriage equality across the country, concedes in a new interview that his side has "probably lost" on the issue.

Good As You reports on the comments from Daly in an interview for the June 4 issue of World Magazine. He attributes the losing battle to changing attitudes among young people.

"We're losing on that one, especially among the 20- and 30-somethings: 65 to 70 percent of them favor same-sex marriage," says Daly in the interview. "I don't know if that's going to change with a little more age--demographers would say probably not. We've probably lost that."

Despite his acknowledgment of a losing battle, Focus on the Family continues to join groups like the National Organization for Marriage to fund antigay campaigns and constitutional amendments, such as the most recent effort to ban marriage equality in Minnesota in 2012.

"Focus on the Family finally got something right--the American people are rejecting their antigay toxic rhetoric and punitive politics, and are siding with loving and committed couples seeking the freedom to marry," said Evan Wolfson, founder and president of Freedom to Marry, in a statement issued in response to the Daly interview. "With six national polls now confirming that a majority of Americans support the freedom to marry, it's time for Focus on the Family and other anti-gay industry activists to move on and, ideally, redirect their resources toward tackling the real problems gay and non-gay Americans could be confronting together in these tough economic times."