Data here and here. When I have a chance, I'll look at some of the breakdown numbers more closely, but here are the big ones:
The biggest is that for the first time, the number of Americans who think GLBT relationships can be "moral" exceeds 50%.
"Moral". It's an odd term, and an odd concept. Would we be more moral if we were married? Isn't that a catch 22?
This one strikes me, it's all over the chart, whether we should be legal or not. This is the "civil unions + marriage" group. And isn't it odd more people consider that we should be legal, than consider us "moral"?
Finally,
This one is basically a flat line. We are making slow, if agonizing, progress on the other two issues. But this one seems intransigent, overall, even though we know that state by state we are improving. Not sure why that's the case.
4 comments:
For the second chart, maybe the legality attenuates the immorality: Justice would require legal recognition of some sort, but many still think it's icky. Curious the dip during the second Reagan term. Also, note the change of wording in 2008: Mentioning lesbians ups the numbers.
For the third one, I suspect that there is a remaining dependence on the shibboleth of the word "marriage" by those who don't know marriage's history.
The dip during Reagan's second term was due to the AIDS crisis gathering steam, when the Dying Time began in earnest. Also, mounting evidence of the spread to "innocent" straight folk sent people into an orgy of hating on teh gays.
That "legality" dip in 2003-04 is the one that's particularly troubling to me. What WE thought of as "Oh Happy Day" in Massachusetts (and briefly, in SF), Straight America in SEEING our happiness, is repulsed: it's the Two (Tuxedo'd) Men Kissing Effect. Straight America screams "Ick!", and throngs the polls to take our rights away (in every state ballot since). The IDEAL phobic propaganda shot, is a two-fer: Tuxedo'd Kissing Men on the left, fresh-faced young'uns on the right. "Think of the children!"
I hope that effect will diminish over time, but we've still got a long ways to go (perhaps even past 2012 in California---I hope I'm wrong).
Curiously, the "legality of G/L relations" took a plunge from 60% in Feb.2003 to 48% in July 2003. The two surveys were before and after the SCOTUS Lawrence v. Texas decision. Apparently 14% had second thoughts at the second survey, or were thinking "but not in MY lifetime" at the first survey. Note also that the two microdips in the early '00s decade happened to be during election years.
I have no idea what the standard of error is for this type of survey, but most similar surveys have SE of 2 to 4% or even higher.
Post a Comment