The latest Gallup poll finds that 50% of Americans are in favor of legalizing gay marriage.

That number would be much higher, but the reactionary right wing is pulling down the curve.

PRINCETON, NJ — Fifty percent of Americans believe same-sex marriages should be recognized by law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages — down slightly from 53% last year, but marking only the second time in Gallup’s history of tracking this question that at least half of Americans have supported legal same-sex marriage. Forty-eight percent say such marriages should not be legal. …

Last’s year’s Values and Beliefs survey marked the first time in Gallup’s history of tracking this issue that a majority favored legalization. Prior to last year, the highest level of support had been 46%, measured in 2007. In 1996, when Gallup first asked the question, 27% supported it, while 68% were opposed.

The issue of same-sex marriage sharply divides the American public along political and religious lines. Almost two-thirds of Democrats support legalizing it, compared with 57% of independents and 22% of Republicans.

These numbers tell the whole story; and this is the reason why Mitt Romney’s openly gay foreign policy adviser Richard Grenell had to go.