Very interesting op-ed in the NY Times from Charles Blow about the changing opinions about Gay people in the US. The Republicans and the Religious Wrong are in trouble. Their main wedge issue seems to be going away. Thank God…
A couple of interesting excerpts with the link to the full column at the bottom:
Last week, while many of us were distracted by the oil belching forth from the gulf floor and the president’s ham-handed attempts to demonstrate that he was sufficiently engaged and enraged, Gallup released a stunning, and little noticed, report on Americans’ evolving views of homosexuality. Allow me to enlighten:
1. For the first time, the percentage of Americans who perceive “gay and lesbian relations” as morally acceptable has crossed the 50 percent mark. (You have to love the fact that they still use the word “relations.” So quaint.)
2. Also for the first time, the percentage of men who hold that view is greater than the percentage of women who do.
3. This new alignment is being led by a dramatic change in attitudes among younger men, but older men’s perceptions also have eclipsed older women’s. While women’s views have stayed about the same over the past four years, the percentage of men ages 18 to 49 who perceived these “relations” as morally acceptable rose by 48 percent, and among men over 50, it rose by 26 percent.
I warned you: stunning.
And:
As for the aversion among men, it may be softening a bit. Professor Savin-Williams says that his current research reveals that the fastest-growing group along the sexuality continuum are men who self-identify as “mostly straight” as opposed to labels like “straight,” “gay” or “bisexual.” They acknowledge some level of attraction to other men even as they say that they probably wouldn’t act on it, but … the right guy, the right day, a few beers and who knows. As the professor points out, you would never have heard that in years past.
It’s worth going to the link below and reading the entire article.
People’s definition of their own sexuality is changing, however there are a fair bunch of them out there that haven’t come to terms with that notion. That is those who are MSM, mostly define themselves as “straight” to avoid suspicion & ridicule and don’t identify with the gay culture..aka on “the down-low”.
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