Co-written with Justin Phillips and Jeff Lax.
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 could easily understand a consistent pro-gay or anti-gay position. But what explains this seeming contradiction within public opinion so that gays should be legally protected against discrimination but at the same time not be allowed to be teachers?
If anything, we could imagine people holding an opposite constellation of views, saying that gays should not be forbidden to be public school teachers but still allowing private citizens to discriminate against gays. A libertarian, for example, might take that position, but it does not appear to be popular among Americans.
We understand the contradictory attitude on gay rights in terms of framing. Our hypothesis goes as follows: when survey respondents are asked about antidiscrimination laws, they consider the widely-held American view that discrimination is a bad thing, so there should be a law against it. They are unlikely to put themselves in the position of an employer who might want to discriminate, and so are not likely to oppose an anti-discrimination law. But when asked about gay teachers, they identify with parents and students, and might feel that having a gay teacher is a risk they’d rather not take.
Thus, we hypothesize that survey respondents answering this question, in contrast to the antidiscrimination question, think in terms of values and outcomes rather than rights. When viewed in terms of rights alone, public opinion is incoherent: it’s hard to see how it makes sense to allow the government the right to discriminate against gays in hiring teachers while prohibiting private organizations from discriminating. It is coherent if framing matters.
The apparent contradiction in public opinion might suggest why, even though anti-discrimination laws have broad support, only 20 states have adopted such laws. And it might suggest why the national Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would protect gays and lesbians from discrimination at work, not been more enthusiastically supported in Congress. (It was passed by the House of Representatives in 2007 but has did not come to a vote in the Senate.) The problem is that it would be difficult to write legislation that incorporates these contradictory stances.
This also suggests that the presidential candidates can take any view on ENDA while still claiming to have majority supportÑby stressing the rights frame or the values frame.
John McCain came out in opposition to ENDA and Barack Obama is on record as supporting it. Although gay issues are often thought of as politically risky, the poll results suggest that support of gay rights can be unequivocally popular in almost every stateÑas long as it is framed in terms of values such as non-discrimination (which is presumably one reason why the Employment Non-Discrimination Act was given this name in the first place).
18 responses so far
1 bogolyubovo // Jan 21, 2009 at 2:06 pm
–Now here we go —-Political Correctness reigns supreme here to keep the Left happy ===—===— JB
2 erasmuse // Jan 21, 2009 at 2:42 pm
I’ve wondered about the survey response inconsistencies too. In fact, it’s even stranger than you say. Not only do 48% of people think homosexuals should not be schoolteachers: 40% think that sodomy should be illegal. And that percentage hasn’t changed much since 1977– it’s just that fewer people are undecided on the issue now and have switched to favoring legalization. See
http://www.gallup.com/poll/108115/Americans-Evenly-Divided-Morality-Homosexuality.aspx
You’re right that it’s a matter of nuance and framing. I wonder what would happen if the pollster asked, “Do you think users of illegal drugs should have equal rights in terms of job opportunities?” or “Do you think tax-law violators should have equal rights in terms of job opportunities?”
On the other hand, if you phrase the question as, “Do you think homosexuals should be hired as schoolteachers?” or “Would you hire a homosexual as a babysitter?” the question is concrete enough that you get different answers.
3 eli // Jan 21, 2009 at 3:29 pm
The issue at hand is not whether employers should discriminate against gays or not– of course they shouldn’t. The issue is whether gays should be teaching American children.
As a high school student myself, I’m fairly close to the subject. I know gay teachers at my school, and I’m also friends with some. They have all– as far as I know– acted professionally.
Think about it this way: how often do straight teachers incorporate their sexual orientation into their job? I’ve never seen it. So why would we expect gay teachers to? Of course, if they *do* choose to play the “gay card” and teach about their sexuality (the only reason the polls aforementioned are largely against gay teachers), then the school has the right to fire them. But not because they’re gay. Rather, because they’re bad teachers. What I’m saying is that a teacher’s sexual orientation is not inherent in their teaching.
I am not against gay teachers.
4 DougD // Jan 21, 2009 at 5:23 pm
No overtly discriminatory hiring practice will stand a sporting challenge now with or without ENDA. Having said that, we need not support any further proposed non-descriminatiory laws any more than we need to support hate crime law. The issue is conduct and consequence, both in the criminal and administrative realm, not orientation – so I agree with eli.
We need to be extremely careful around these issues as they are fraught and much more likely to hurt us than help us. Tactically, we should stick to founding principles: We support an individual’s right to the pursuit of happiness to the extent that such pursuit doesn’t interfere with anyone else. People must be responsible for their conduct, and while we may roll our eyes at people’s personal choices and taste, we cannot make GOP policy (or law) on either or in either direction. If we can get *ahead* of the Democrats on this libertarian principle, we’ve played good chess.
5 Pincher Martin // Jan 21, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Good Lord. Two consecutive posts on gays. Is this a gay rights site or a rebuild conservatism site?
And the shoddy and tendentious manipulation of this issue from a Harvard statistician as he seeks to prove that gay rights is not just popular, but that it can be “unequivocally popular” in *almost every* state in the union. As long as the issue is framed right.
But why should conservatives care? We aren’t interested in framing a trivial issue to make ourselves appear more palatable to groups who aren’t going to vote for us anyway. If gay rights is an important part of the political calculus made by an individual voter when he enters the ballot booth, then he won’t vote for the GOP. There’s already a pro-gay rights political party; they’re called Democrats.
Now if Gelman had put forward an analysis which showed how gay rights could be made unpopular in almost every state in the union, then that would have made his analysis worth reading.
6 redrn // Jan 21, 2009 at 7:58 pm
It infuriates me when ANYONE makes comments about those who identify themselves as gay as not being able to visit a sick loved one in the hospital. As an RN I can attest to the fact that nurses nor others roam the halls of the hospital looking for gay people to kick out of the hospitals. We actually have much more important things to be taking care of.
The other issue that begs to be answered is don’t any of these people who claim gays can’t visit their loved ones in the hospital know what a Durable Power of Attorney for health care reasons is? It is very easily filed out, does not require an attorney, is at no cost and ensures that the person you wish to be your LEGAL spokesperson when you cannot be is the person YOU opt to have speak for you. If that happens to be your “significant other” same sex or otherwise than a few simple signatures make it so.
This is a non-issue issue that I find incredible that no one calls the gay rights folks on. To have a man who is now President who is supposedly a well educated individual to mouth this baloney should make every health care provider out there as irritated and angry as it makes me.
7 DougD // Jan 21, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Uh I think you missed my point there, Pincher. Gays *have* rights in the USA, and we likely dont need more laws to ensure this, any more than we need hate crime laws. The point I was trying to make is that big tent means a big tent. At least ten percent of our population is gay, and I admit that Im guessing, but probably 60-70% of our population has a family member, colleague or close friend who is gay. The number is likely lower in rural areas, and likely lower among the over-forty demographic, but its probably *higher* among city dwellers and people forty and younger. I dont think its disputable that this number will be high among independents. And my question to you (setting aside for the moment the inherent right of people to private enjoyment free of interference from the government, which I consider a conservative value) is: Do you really want to permanently alienate this important primary or secondary demographic? I dont, for both philosophical and tactical reasons.
8 Pincher Martin // Jan 21, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Doug, my comment was not addressed to you. It was addressed to the site, which had two consecutive posts (one by Gelman; one by Kirchick) on the topic of the GOP being more inclusive to those who support gay rights. But now that you have drawn my attention to your comments, let me say your claim that gays are 10% of the U.S. population is ludicrous. Just because a couple of men once rubbed up against each other in camp when they were boys doesn’t make either one of them gay. The more accurate figure for gays is probably 2% to 4%. And, yes, that figure can safely be ignored in politics, as gays in the liberal state of California found out last November.
9 esurience // Jan 21, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Pincher Martin: You don’t have to be gay to support equal rights for gays, so it doesn’t matter what percentage of the population is gay. (Exit polling data suggests it’s about 4-5%, but that’s just people who self-identify as gay. There are plenty of Ted Haggards and Larry Craigs out there.) There’s much larger group that is sympathetic to the cause of equality. You reference prop8 in California, but 48% of people voted ‘No’, it was a close vote. And it’s dramatically closer than the vote 8 years ago when only 38% of people voted for equality. But the policy differences between the parties with regard to equal rights isn’t the major problem. The problem is social conservatives’ obsession with homosexuality. As long as a politician is pro-life and willing to bash the gays, they get a free pass on every other issue from these so-called conservatives. That’s not good for conservatism. We need to hold politicians accountable on issues that actually matter to the country, rather than obsessing about sex.
10 Pincher Martin // Jan 21, 2009 at 11:50 pm
Esuriance, what exit polling data are you referring to? California’s? Well, that is hardly likely to be representative of the U.S. as a whole. The Golden State is a Mecca for gays. As for Prop 8, when you consider that the state is very blue and that the youth vote was revved up for Obama and that gays are about 5% of the voting population, what is surprising is that the vote wasn’t lopsidedly in favor of the “No’s”. The state voted in favor of Obama by nearly 25%. There was not a single major politician in the state who came out in favor of the proposition. And yet even with all that, Prop 8 won by more than half-a-million votes. That’s not close.
11 Pincher Martin // Jan 21, 2009 at 11:57 pm
And the problem is not social conservatives’ “obsession” with homosexuals. The problem is that homosexuals are obsessed with themselves, and continually foist their narcissism and their pet issues on the rest of us — even though most of us don’t give a shit about who they fuck. Why did California, with its domestic partnerships, need to have gay marriage? It clearly didn’t. Gays in the state had de facto equality. But, you see, a gay man is not happy unless he is talking about himself. So they push court cases (and bad law) into areas where it isn’t needed.
12 esurience // Jan 22, 2009 at 12:07 am
Pincher Martin: This link ( http://www.gaypatriot.net/2008/11/07/mccain-increased-gay-vote-margin-for-gop/ ) references a national CNN exit poll that showed self-identified gays made up 4% of the electorate. Also, the 18-29 demographic in California was about the same in 2004 and 2008, according to: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/CA/S/01/epolls.0.html (2004) and: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#CAI01p1 (2008). It was 21% vs 20% (so, if anything, it went down). Anyway, the point is not just the closeness of the vote this time, but the direction it is heading. If in 8 years the margin between supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage grows by another 10% (as it did from the 2000 to 2008 election), then same-sex marriage will pass with 58% of the vote.
13 esurience // Jan 22, 2009 at 12:42 am
Pincher Martin: The question is not why California needed same-sex marriage — it already had it since June 2008. The question is why did it need to be taken away? Proponents of Prop8 spent about 40 million dollars — money that could have gone to support Republican candidates — to unwed thousands of same-sex couples. What makes that a wise expenditure, both in terms of money and political capital? Given the bloodbath that was 2008 for Republicans, the obsession of social “conservatives” with homosexuality seems ill-advised. You said before that these issues were “trivial” — so isn’t money and focus better spent elsewhere?
14 Fitz // Jan 22, 2009 at 7:34 am
The people and republicans are very tolerant & even generous when it comes to gays.
The problem is the gender left in our Universities have radicalized homosexuals into thinking of themselves as analogous to blacks. So you get the whole litany heterosexism, homophobia, heteronormativityand so on.
People know intuitively that #1. Marriage must be distinguished as superior to all other relationships and exclusively male/female #2.Children and young people should be free from homosexual propaganda.
Now this is all very reasonable, except the homosexual lobby is not reasonable. They demand absolute moral equivalency. Tolerance is not enough; when they use that word they mean capitulation. That is why civil unions are considered separate but equal. Reasonable Americans would draw a line that offered reasonable protections; but the gay lobby will only use this all to get the camels nose under the tent and end up perverting marriage & children.
15 Pincher Martin // Jan 22, 2009 at 10:23 am
esurience, so 4% of the national electorate identifies as gay, according to the CNN exit polls. That is still at the upper end of the range I originally provided (2% to 4%) to Doug. Like I said, that is not significant. It is certainly not why the GOP got slaughtered in 2006 or 2008. As for the 18-29 year-old demographic in California, I said they were “revved up for Obama.” In 2004, they went 58% to 39% for Kerry over Bush — a nineteen-point margin. In 2008, they went 76% to 23% for Obama over McCain — a fifty-three-point margin. That supports my characterization.
16 Pincher Martin // Jan 22, 2009 at 10:32 am
“Pincher Martin: The question is not why California needed same-sex marriage — it already had it since June 2008. The question is why did it need to be taken away?”****************************************************************
No, that is not the question. The issue had been settled by California’s voters when gay rights advocates tried to force the issue in the courts. It’s now been settled twice. California showed there are no red and blue states on this issue; there are only states which support a distinction between gays and breeders, and those states which have political elites (i.e. judges) willing to buck popular opinion. It’s intellectually dishonest to characterize this issue as anything but marginal to the future of the GOP.
17 Pincher Martin // Jan 22, 2009 at 10:38 am
“Given the bloodbath that was 2008 for Republicans, the obsession of social “conservatives” with homosexuality seems ill-advised. You said before that these issues were “trivial” — so isn’t money and focus better spent elsewhere?”
******************************************************************** The issues are trivial to the future of the GOP. We are not dependent on the gay vote. We are dependent, however, on social conservatives. And the electoral outcomes in 2006 and 2008 had nothing to do with gay rights. They had to do with incompetence and corruption.
18 MittMan // Jan 22, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Being ‘gay’ is a personal lifestyle choice and should in no means be acknowledged as some sort of minority status that gains homosexuals special treatment over their fellow non-gay citizens. It is illogical and laughable that someone spinning the ‘gay rights’ agenda would compare their situation with blacks in the South during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There is no comparisons. What the ‘gay rights’ movement is really about is forcing the majority of Americans to accpet as ‘normal’ a lifestyle choice they find unsettling. If this happens then what is next? Are we going to be forced to recognize other lifestyle choices like Polygamy and Beastiality? That is what the agenda of the radical gay movement is about – cracking open the door to make legal a whole slew of nonsensical and disgusting behavior. That is the cold, hard truth.
If you want to be gay then by all means be gay but don’t get in my face and tell me I have to like your lifestyle choice. I reserve the right not to like it as should any American.
You must log in to post a comment.