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发帖数: 19713 | 1 Support for LGBT Rights on the Rise in Conservative America
By Andrew Harmon
UNITED STATES MAP SURVEY POLL YES X390 (PHOTOS.COM) | ADVOCATE.COM
Research released Monday on national attitudes regarding LGBT rights finds a
slim majority in favor of marriage equality, yet a solid consensus on
employment protections and adoption rights.
People in areas of the country with the least LGBT protections also appear
to be more progressive than their elected officials, according to the recent
survey, conducted by Anna Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research
and commissioned by the Human Rights Campaign. Seventy-three percent of
respondents in the South, for example, said they support employment
protections for LGBT people, even though the vast majority of the region
lacks state statutes banning such discrimination (78% of Midwest residents
polled also support employment protections).
The national survey of 900 adults found 51% support for marriage rights; 58%
further favor extending equal federal benefits to same-sex couples who have
married in states where it's legal to do so. (Click here for a poll summary
.)
Perhaps most topical, given recent news on the 2012 presidential campaign
trail, the survey found that only 24% of those polled believed that prayer-
focused "reparative therapy" could change a person’s sexual orientation.
Widespread dismissal of the controversial form of therapy tracks consensus
in the medical and mental health establishments: The American Psychological
Association, for example, passed a 2009 resolution advising mental health
professionals to avoid telling clients that sexual orientation can be
changed through therapeutic methods.
The survey kicks off an HRC 17-city tour beginning August 12 in Salt Lake
City and continuing through states with some of the least protections for
LGBT people in the nation.
HRC spokesman Michael Cole-Schwartz said the bus tour will focus on what
LGBT individuals can do to protect themselves and their families, such as
drafting medical decision documents, advocating for domestic-partner
benefits with an employer, and lobbying for antibullying curriculum in
schools. LGBT experts involved in the tour will include Family Acceptance
Project director Caitlin Ryan, who will participate in Salt Lake City and
Omaha events.
“We are in the midst of a cultural tipping point on lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgender issues, and our job is to push the scale as far and as fast
as we can toward fairness,” HRC president Joe Solmonese said Monday of the
tour, which ends October 30 in Orlando, Fla. (info on the campaign
available here).
Multiple mainstream polls have indicated that cultural tipping point on
marriage equality in the past year. According to an ABC News/Washington Post
survey in March, 53% of Americans said that gays should have the right to
marry — a double-digit shift in support from an identical poll in 2006. |
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