What do Americans think of gay rights?
In his address at the Democratic convention, Barack Obama said, “surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination.”What was he thinking, saying this to the nation? California was on the way to a contentious battle over same-sex marriage and the issue has arisen in other states as well. Isn’t gay rights a wedge issue that Democrats should try to avoid?
Yes, Americans are conflicted about same-sex marriage, but one thing they mostly agree on is support for antidiscrimination laws.
In surveys, 72% of Americans support laws prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. An even greater number answer yes when asked, “Do you think homosexuals should have equal rights in terms of job opportunities?” This consensus is remarkably widespread: in all states a majority support antidiscrimination laws protecting gays and lesbians, and in all but 10 states this support is 70% or higher.
But people do not uniformly support gay rights. When asked whether gays should be allowed to work as elementary school teachers, 48% of Americans say no. . . .
We understand the contradictory attitude on gay rights in terms of framing. . . .
Full story here.
Comments
Imagine that the state of the world is that 28 percent of Americans oppose protecting gays from workplace discrimination, 24 percent support protecting gays from workplace discrimination in any vocation, and 48 percent support protecting gays from workplace discrimination in any vocation not involving supervision of young children. That would, without any reference to framing, explain the apparent contradiction between the 48 percent not wanting gays to work as elementary school teachers and the 72 percent supporting antidiscrimination laws (when responding, I presume, to the Gallup Poll or a similarly-worded question that caveats the workplace discrimination item with “in general” and only permits a dichotomous support/oppose response).
The framing hypothesis implies that support for antidiscrimination measures drops when an item involves elementary school teachers, but it may just be the case that the 72/48 difference is due to the different levels (general vs specific) at which attitudes are measured and the consequent variation in the ability of the survey items to measure nuances in public opinion.
Posted by: L J | January 23, 2009 12:10 AM