New survey suggests decline has strong correlation between Christian nationalism and opposition to inclusive policies
Public support for same-sex marriage and nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ Americans has fallen, even as the overall share remains high, according to new findings by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute.
Broad majorities of Americans, regardless of political party or faith, continue to support LGBTQ+ rights and protections, the analysis found. But after years of rising public support, the decline is notable, said Melissa Deckman, CEO of the PRRI.
The survey analyzed Americans’ attitudes toward LGBTQ+ rights across three policies: same-sex marriage, nondiscrimination protections and religion-based service refusals. It found support for all three measures had softened for the first time since the PRRI began tracking views of the issues nearly a decade ago.
While the “vast majority of Americans continue to endorse protections for LGBTQ Americans”, Deckman said the results may serve as a “warning sign” for those working to safeguard the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans amid a conservative legislative and legal effort to erode them.
It’s the constant, incessant, and deranged attacks on trans people and drag queens. The sociopaths in charge of the Republican party have figured out that attacking them is a good way to keep their supporters frothing - and keep the money coming in.
Yeah, but how do you go from “queer people deserve the same rights as I do” to “no they don’t?”
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Centrists will really be the end of us.
Maybe overall, maybe, but there are a quiet number of us who went from “ah, they’re okay” to “don’t you fuck with these beautiful people,” and I know this because I’m one of them, and not the only one.
When LGBTQIA+ visibility and rights were on the rise and growing, I thought it was great, but I also believed it had nothing to do with me because I’m cis/het.
But I’m also a student of history, so when certain right wingers got emboldened to be openly hateful – and bizarrely so, like JK Rowling and her nonsensical TERF shit: “you, but NOT you” wtf? – and then the right wing started going after anyone not explicitly cis/het with ANYTHING they could find, finally getting to the point of criminalization of trans people’s actual existence in places like Florida, I had zero doubt about where we were headed, and I WILL NOT PARTICIPATE.
I’ve known the destination all along, and so has anyone who tracked the process of pre-WWII Germany into authoritarianism, as well as anyone who ever had a burning need to know how a country could go from a truly laissez-faire democracy to concentration camps. Germany was where the first successful trans operations were done in the 20s, and the first place trans people were thrown into concentration camps a decade or so later. It’s not a secret.
But this is not who I am, it is not what I stand for, and I will NOT be a part of that. So now I am fiercely PRO LGBTQIA+, and the right wing has itself to thank for that. I want you to live, and to prosper, and to enjoy the same rights as anyone else, and to know that at least some of us recognize that your lives are worth as much as our own.
When Team Ovens shows up for a rematch with Team Humanity, if one of us is not safe, none of us are safe. And we’re there. It’s happening.
Agreed. My support for gay rights has gone from “it’s just right that they should be able to marry and live how they please” to “if you touch them I swear to fucking god I will stop at nothing until you’re a destitute nobody”.
I noticed since at least a couple of years a pervasive and ever more widespread campaign against representation and lgbtq rights, and the early phase passed through apparently meaningless but popular thing like pop culture and gaming, including the social media sphere at large.
But this time, they’re aiming for a much larger political action, and their tools aren’t the ones of entertainment media but those of traditional values. They appeal to things they know for being popular and still largely followed, like religions and whatever moves around it.
The trend is clearly there, before our very eyes, and yet we still don’t take action. I don’t know if I have such a strong identity, you know, and for this exact reason I don’t want to see this much people suffer. On top of a political crisis this is an empathy one too, IMHO.
On top of a political crisis this is an empathy one too, IMHO.
Very much so. And maybe the crisis of empathy is the deeper, more critical problem.
I have noticed that, right alongside the attacks against LGBTQIA+ folks, there has been an overt effort to normalize both apathy AND the “disorders of conscience” (sociopathy, narcissism, etc) to try to repaint those lacking conscience and guilt as just “different” instead of the amoral predators among prey, who believe conscience is for the weak, that they are.
There was an article in the NY Times just a couple weeks ago doing that, and it wasn’t the first. “Oh, sociopaths aren’t that terrible, just different,” that kind of shit, addressing the actual damage they do and the lives they leave wrecked in language more suited to a statistics report.
The first paragraph:
Sociopaths are modern-day boogeymen, and the word “sociopath” is casually tossed around to describe the worst, most amoral among us. But they are not boogeymen; they are real people and, according to Patric Gagne, widely misunderstood. Gagne wrote “Sociopath,” her buzzy forthcoming memoir, to try to correct some of those misunderstandings and provide a fuller picture of sociopathy, which is now more frequently referred to as antisocial personality disorder. As a child, Gagne found herself compelled toward violent outbursts in an effort to try to compensate for the emotional apathy that was her default. As she got older, those compulsive behaviors turned into criminal ones like trespassing and theft.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/25/magazine/patric-gagne-interview.html
Firstly, this is a poll. Remember, polls are bullshit.
Secondly, this is the Public Religion Research Institute. Made possible by a grant from the Unitarian church. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, just that that’s the case)
Thirdly, follow the link to the poll to see breakdowns like, “ Strong majorities of Americans — including most people of faith — support nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ individuals, but overall support has declined.” Do you use the term “people of faith”? No? Why or why not? That’s the third point against.
Fourthly, it’s a relatively large sample size, 22k, compared to the 800-2000 we usually see, using the Ipsos KnowledgePanel. Ostensibly a good thing. Link is at the bottom of the survey page. KP, for short, is an online poll. People get a random letter in the physical, postal mail. The letter says “Hi (your name here) we’re a super respectable polling agency who’d like to make money off your opinions” and includes a special seekrit password to “let” you sign up. So all the respondents did that. Would you do that?
Then, weeks or months (or years?) later you (as a KnowledgePanel Invitee extraordinaire) get a random email that says “go online and give us your opinion on ‘matters of faith’” (i’m just making that up, but they could have used that language)
Then, Fifthly, people went online to share their real honest and true thoughts about LGBTQIA+ protections and other matters “of faith”. Does being online skew people’s opinions? You’d always answer online as you would face-to-face wouldn’t you?
Okay, that’s all I got.
Propaganda is a hell of a drug.
“Moderate” conservatives don’t give a shit. If their neighbors are anti-LGBTQ, then they think it must not be that bad to be anti-LGBT. They would rather not support LGBTQ, especially when it doesn’t affect their lives directly, than be considered not Republican.
