4 in 10 Americans have friends or relatives who are gay
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/485/friends-who-are-gay
May 23, 2007 Four-in-Ten Americans Have Close Friends or Relatives Who are Gay Survey finds Familiarity Is Closely Linked to Greater Tolerance
by Shawn Neidorf , Research Associate Pew Research Center for the
People & the Press
and Rich Morin, Senior Editor, Pew Research Center
In the past four decades, growing numbers of gays have come out of
the closet and into the mainstream of American life. As a
consequence, 4-in-10 Americans now report that some of their close
friends or family members are gays or lesbians, according to a recent
national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
About half of all women, young people, college graduates, political
liberals and mainline Protestants say that someone close to them is
gay, the survey found. But significantly fewer men, conservative
Republicans and older Americans report that a good friend or family
member is homosexual.
An analysis of survey results suggests that familiarity is closely
linked to tolerance. People who have a close gay friend or family
member are more likely to support gay marriage and they are also
significantly less likely to favor allowing schools to fire gay
teachers than are those with little or no personal contact with gays,
the poll found.
Taken together, these findings underscore the complexity of public
attitudes about homosexuality. These divisions were dramatically
highlighted during a recent Republican presidential debate when
former Health and Human Resources Secretary Tommy Thompson provoked a
flurry of criticism when he said in response to a question that an
employer should be allowed to fire a gay worker. Thompson quickly
recanted, saying he was distracted when answering the question. The
results also help to explain why the debate over gay rights remains
so divisive nearly four decades after the Stonewall disturbance in
New York City in late June 1969 marked the beginning of a new era in
the politics of sexual orientation.
Overall, the poll of 2,007 randomly selected adults conducted Dec. 12-
Jan. 9, 2007 found that 41% say a close friend or member of their
family is gay. Another 58% said they had no gay friends or family
members while the remainder offered no opinion or declined to answer
the question. Margin of sampling error for the overall results is
plus or minus 3 percentage points.
According to the survey, considerably more women than men–47% versus
35%–say they have a close friend or family member who is gay. There
is very little difference by age in the percentage of people who know
gays well, except when it comes to those 65 and older, who are much
less likely to say they have gay family members or close friends.
Percentages vary greatly by political orientation: Conservative
Republicans are the least likely to say they have a close gay friend
or family member (33%), while liberal Democrats are most likely to
say so (59%). Race seems to have virtually no effect on whether a
person knows gay people well.
Among religious groups, mainline Protestants and seculars (those who
don’t claim any particular religion) are the most likely to say they
had a gay family member or close friend, with 47% saying so. White
evangelicals (31%) and Hispanic Catholics (33%) are the least likely
to say they have gay family members or close friends.
People living in the south (37%) are less likely to know gay people
well than are people living in the Northeast or West, and people
living in rural areas (34%) are less likely to say so than those in
urban or suburban areas.
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% to 25%. A similar relationship between knowing gays
and favoring gay rights is evident when people are asked whether
school boards should have the right to fire teachers who are known
homosexuals. That idea gains support from only 15% of those who have
a close friend or family member who is gay. Almost four-in-ten (38%)
of those who don’t have close friends or family members who are gay
support the idea. In other words, those without close friends or
family members who are gay are more than twice as likely to say
schools should be able to fire gay teachers as are people who are
close to gays. Overall, 28% of the public thinks school boards should
be able to fire gay teachers.
Over the past 20 years, support for the idea that school boards
should be able to fire gay teachers has waned. In May 1987, 51% of
people agreed with the idea. By June 1992, that number had fallen to
40% and it has dropped into the 30s-range ever since. The January
2007 poll that put it at 28% is the first time support has fallen
below 30%.
Opposition to gay marriage also has declined somewhat, although it
remains strong. More than half of Americans (55%) oppose letting same-
sex couples marry legally, and 33% oppose it strongly. Support for
gay marriage stands at 37%, and only 13% favor it strongly. That
pattern — opposition being higher and stronger and support being
lower and weaker — is longstanding. In June 1996, for example, 65%
of Americans opposed gay marriage, 41% of them strongly; 27% favored
it, only 6% strongly.
Only Massachusetts grants gays the right to marry. New Hampshire is
poised to join Vermont, Connecticut and New Jersey in enacting a
civil-union law that conveys all of the rights and responsibilities
of marriage, without the title. Rhode Island this year became the
first state to accept gay marriages from Massachusetts and a New York
judge this month decided to legally recognize the marriages of some
New York residents who tied the knot in Massachusetts. Oregon and
Washington this year joined California, Hawaii and Maine in enacting
domestic partnership laws, which offer a handful of state marital
benefits. Most states — 42 — have laws prohibiting same sex
marriage, and 26 have amendments to their state constitutions
forbidding the practice, according to Stateline.org.