"If everybody else walked off the edge of a cliff, would you?" You've probably heard some form of that phrase. It is a warning about the appeal to popularity, the attempt to prove a point simply because it is a popular belief. Sometimes it sounds like peer pressure (everybody is doing it). But in it's purest form, it is an appeal to some common belief as evidence for its truth.
When someone claims that their opinion is supported by a large number of people, so therefore must be true, their reasoning is fallacious. Many people believe that it is warmer in the summer because we are closer to the sun. Just because many people believe that, doesn't make it true. In fact, we are closest to the sun in January.
"Voters supported Prop 8 in California, so it must be right." This is a classic appeal to popularity, as is the counter-argument "most Americans support gay marriage, so it must be right." Both of these arguments are fallacious reasoning, because whether gay marriage is right or not has nothing to do with popular sentiment. It's best to avoid arguing a point based on popularity (everybody knows that...) if you want your reasoning to be sound.
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