An analysis of survey results suggests that familiarity is closely linked to tolerance … Overall, those who say they have a family member or close friend who is gay are more than twice as likely to support gay marriage as those who don't—55 per cent to 25 per cent.This underscores what we were telling people way back in my activist days—if LGBT people would only come out, we said, their friends, family members and co-workers would know a real GLBT person, and it’s much harder to hate someone you know, especially someone you care about or love. So, this research only proves what we were saying way back then.
White evangelical Protestants were the least likely to have gay family or good friends at 31 per cent followed by Hispanic Catholics at 33 per cent.This is most likely the result of gay family members not coming out, and would also explain why liberal democrats and people in urban areas are more likely to know gay people than are Republicans and rural people.
So, for progress for GLBT people in America the advice is the same it’s been for a generation now: Come out, come out wherever you are. Either that or give up the fight and move to a country that’s more tolerant; there are many to choose from.
6 comments:
What is sad and/or disturbing is that Cheney appears to be accepting of his daughter, her wife and their child, but works so hard to disallow other GLBT people from having full lives.
You're absolutely right. Cheney's a hypocrite in addition to everything else that's wrong with him, and that's a very, very, very long list.
Well I know that I will be marching again in Toulouse's Gay pride as I have been doing ever since 1999 ....
we have no gay pride march in New Zealand. But, then, this country also recognises and supports the human and civil rights of GLBT people, unlike the US.
Cheney has not worked against the GLBT community, he's very close with his daughter and her partner, and due to the fact his views are in opposition to the administration he serves, he has remained silent. You will hear more once he is out of office. He in not a gay activist, nor is his daughter.
Matt, it depends on what you mean by "working against." True, Dick didn't lead the charge against GLBT people as Bush and Rove did, but by remaining silent he aided and abetted the anti-gay crusade. A solid conservative like Cheney standing up forcefully against the anti-gay crusaders could have helped prevent some of the damage that was done.
As for his daughter, she always said her "private life" was no one's business until she wanted to promote her book, and then she got angry when people didn't stop asking questions once her book ended up on the remainders table.
Neither Cheney can have it both ways. Dick can't pretend to support his daughter while allowing his party to crusade against her, nor can Mary be private and public at the same time.
In my mind, they're both hypocrites. He said he loved and supported his daughter, but was happy to use anti-gay crusades that attacked his own daughter's life in order to gain political power (this we must gather from his silence). She was happy to exploit being lesbian to sell books, but then wanted to be left along when she had a child that her dad's buddies consider an abomination and a legal bastard.
Maybe they weren't the leaders of the anti-gay crusades, but neither did anything to stop it, either.
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