Poll Ponderings

There’s something interesting about these numbers:

– 62 percent of Americans believe that Foley’s behavior was “typical of politicians,” as opposed to just 30 percent who believe his behavior was “typical of gay men.”

– 70 percent of Americans say that the Foley scandal has not changed their opinion of gay people.

(Presumably, that would mean 30% of people say their opinion of gay people has changed. Well, not quite. 3% weren’t sure whether their opinions had changed. Of the remaining 27%, 4% now have a better opinion of gay people, leaving 23% of respondents whose opinions of gay people are now “less favorable.”)

Now follow me for a moment. If you didn’t believe that Foley’s behavior was typical of gay men, why would your opinion of gay people become less favorable? It wouldn’t. There’s no reason to cast aspersions on the entire gay population unless you believe that Foley’s actions somehow typified the whole community.

That surely means that the 23% who say their opinions of gay people are now less favorable are also in the 30% who believe his behavior was “typical of gay men.” But if you already think that most gay men are like Foley, your opinion of them is pretty low to begin with, so, basically, those 23% are just saying they hate gay people even more than they did before—which, if we’re being honest, isn’t really a meaningful “change of opinion.” That means it’s more like 93% of Americans whose opinions of gay people haven’t changed because of the Foley scandal. We’re left with 3% who don’t know what their opinion is (nor, probably, what year it is) and 4% whose opinions changed for the better.

That’s what you call a win. And more evidence that the constant barrage of attacks against the LGBT community is backfiring.

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Another interesting tidbit from this poll: 80% say that “making sure that gays and lesbians receive the same rights and protections under the law as other Americans” is either Very Important (47%), Fairly Important (14%), or Somewhat Important (19%). But only 66% of the total group polled support gay marriage (21%) or civil unions (45%). Huh? That seems odd.

Especially when 66% also say that “protecting our traditional family values from the gay lifestyle” is either Very Important (42%), Fairly Important (9%), or Somewhat Important (15%). But only 31% of the total group polled believe “there should be no legal recognition of a relationship between gay or lesbian couples.”

So basically, 80% of people want to make sure gays and lesbians have equal rights, but a bunch of them don’t support legalized gay marriage or civil unions. And 66% of people want to protect “traditional values from the gay lifestyle,” but a bunch of them do support legalized gay marriage of civil unions. And, clearly, some people who say that gays and lesbians should receive the same rights and protections under the law also say that we need to protect our traditional family values from the gay lifestyle. That’s just bizarre.

This proves two things: 1) Americans are a very schizophrenic lot. 2) There is no reason under the sun or the moon that such a collection of mixed-up birdbrains should be allowed to vote on the rights of other people. They can’t even be trusted to make any bloody sense, and yet we’ve conferred upon them the unprecedented entitlement of deciding whether to extend civil rights to others.

Here’s the big problem: Whether or not those rights are granted, it makes not a modicum of practical difference to the lives of the heterosexual majority (in spite of what Daddy Dobson or like-minded doomsayers who equate gay marriage with the fall of civilization would have us believe). And that’s decidedly problematic when human nature dictates that we vote primarily out of self-interest. If you have no vested interest in the outcome of that on which you’re voting, you’ve no incentive to explore beyond your aesthetic preference, which could be rooted in religious beliefs or visceral hatred or any number of other things that have nothing to do with the legal merits of the issue.

In other words, it’s no wonder many straight voters are ill-informed and hold completely illogical positions about LGBT equality. Worse yet, one of our political parties is glad of the fact, and the other can’t be bothered to question the wisdom of leaving an important civil rights issue in the hands of a populace whose vast majority won’t be affected by the outcome.

Civil rights shouldn’t be put to a ballot in the first place, because equality isn’t meant to be predicated on the good will of the majority. Had we waited until America was “ready” for interracial marriage, it wouldn’t have been legalized until 1991, 23 years after Virginia v. Loving. But as long as we’re going to take this stupid approach, someone ought to make clear to the people given the undeserved opportunity to vote on someone else’s civil rights that it’s not a referendum on whether they think boys kissing is icky, but on whether they believe that we are indeed one nation with liberty and justice for all.