Posted on 05/15/2003 12:16:22 PM PDT by Remedy
But Americans are evenly divided on issue of legal civil unions between homosexuals giving them the legal rights of married couples
PRINCETON, NJ -- Attitudes toward homosexuality and homosexual relations continue to be one of the more complex areas of public opinion that Gallup measures. The issue is not only one of significant concern because of its traditional moral and religious overtones, but in recent years it has been at the center of state and federal legislative battles, highly publicized court challenges, and political debate.
Gallup's recent Values and Beliefs survey shows that a majority of Americans accept the idea that homosexual relations between consenting adults should be legal and that homosexuality is an acceptable way of life. The acceptance of homosexuality as legal is now at the 60% level, up from 52% last year and 43% when Gallup first began asking about it in 1977. The recent survey also finds that almost 9 out of 10 Americans agree that homosexuals should have equal rights in terms of job opportunities, although opinions on allowing homosexual couples to legally form civil unions, giving them some of the legal rights of married couples, are evenly divided.
A plurality of Americans believe that homosexuality is something that is a result of one's upbringing or environment, rather than being a genetic trait with which a person is born, although opinion on this has been somewhat inconsistent over time. Should Homosexuality Be Legal?
Gallup first asked about the legality of homosexuality in 1977, with a basic question worded as follows: "Do you think homosexual relations between consenting adults should or should not be legal?" At that point, Americans were evenly divided on the issue, as 43% said yes, 43% said no, and 14% were not sure. In Gallup's recent Values and Beliefs poll, conducted May 5-7, the public has clearly become more moderate toward homosexuality than was the case two decades earlier: 60% of Americans now say that homosexual relations should be legal, 35% not legal, with 5% unsure. During the mid-1980s, the percentage saying that homosexual relations should be legal dropped to as low as 32%, perhaps resulting from either the conservative environment ushered in by the Reagan administration, or the beginning of widespread publicity surrounding AIDS and its prevalence in the homosexual community. Equal Job Opportunities
Over the same time period, there has also been significant change in attitudes about employment rights for homosexuals. The specific Gallup question asks: "As you may know, there has been considerable discussion in the news regarding the rights of homosexual men and women. In general, do you think homosexuals should or should not have equal rights in terms of job opportunities?" The percentage saying yes is now 88%, similar to recent years, but significantly higher than the 56% when first recorded in 1977. As recently as 1992, fewer than four in five Americans felt homosexuals should be given equal treatment in hiring.
Thus, there is a gap between the 60% of the public saying that homosexual relations should be legal, and the 88% saying that homosexuals should have equal rights in the workplace. These two questions may play to different norms that exist in contemporary America. The legality question may tap into a general sense of morality, and a reluctance of a more conservative segment of society to sanction what they consider to be deviant behavior. The question about equal opportunity, on the other hand, may invoke the public's attitudes about discrimination, fair play, and equal treatment. Homosexuality as an Acceptable Lifestyle
Indeed, a sizable percentage of Americans continue to frown on the homosexual lifestyle. In 1982, Gallup distinguished between Americans' personal feelings about homosexuality from their opinions about its legality by asking this question: "Do you feel that homosexuality should be considered an acceptable alternative lifestyle or not?" At that time, just 34% said yes. Public acceptance on this measure has increased incrementally since that point, and our latest poll shows that a small majority, 54%, now agrees that homosexuality should be considered an acceptable lifestyle. Still, that leaves a substantial minority of 43% who disagree.
There are significant differences in willingness to accept homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle within subgroups of the American population. In general, the following groups are most likely to agree that such relationships are acceptable: Nature or Nurture?
Part of the argument about homosexuality through the years has focused on the issue of how much control an individual has over his or her sexual orientation. Many gay and lesbian leaders stress the fact that homosexuality is an inborn trait, and -- similar to gender or race -- is not a decision over which an individual has direct control. The classic Gallup Poll question designed to get at this issue -- first used in 1977 -- asks if homosexuality is "something a person is born with or is homosexuality due to other factors such as upbringing or environment?"
In 1977, the public was more likely to agree with the argument that homosexuality is due to factors such as one's upbringing and environment, rather than the argument that homosexuality is something with which a person is born -- by a margin of 56% to 13%. Twenty-six years later, in 2003, the percentage of Americans accepting the genetic argument has more than doubled to 38%, while the percentage agreeing that homosexuality is environmentally caused has dropped to 44%. Thus, a slight plurality of Americans now agrees with the "nurture" argument over the "nature" argument. Still, unlike other trend questions that have moved to a more liberal orientation in this year's survey, the "upbringing/environment" alternative in response to this question is more prevalent now than it was in either 2001 or 2002. Should Homosexual Couples Be Given the Same Legal Rights as Married Couples?
The answer to this question is a clear "yes" if the issue is simply whether gay or lesbian partners should be able to share healthcare and Social Security survivor benefits. Americans are less supportive if providing legal rights is done in the context of establishing a right of civil unions for gays and lesbians, akin to marriage.
Polling in recent years has consistently shown that at least 6 out of 10 Americans are opposed to the recognition of marriages between homosexuals as legally valid unions, with the same rights as traditional marriages.
If the question is re-phrased to emphasize giving "some of the legal rights of married couples," but without the assumption that they would in some ways be "married," public opinion breaks even. In May 2002, 46% favored a law that would "allow homosexual couples to legally form civil unions, giving them some of the legal rights of married couples," while 51% opposed. This year, opinion is exactly divided, with 49% in favor and 49% opposed.
At the same time, a question that asks about giving homosexual couples the same legal rights as married heterosexual couples "regarding healthcare benefits and Social Security survivor benefits" finds 62% agreement.
Survey Methods
These results are based on telephone interviews with a randomly selected national sample of 1,005 adults, aged 18 and older, conducted May 5-7, 2003. For results based on this sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random effects is ±3 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
I know what he is, but what are you?
Errrr???? Yeah?!
Clues for the clueless are contained in the material accessed by the links in post#1. If you don't have Acrobat, use http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/access_adv_form.html or Google to view as HTML.
But the problem is that you are supporting this abhorrent act. If sodomy is against the law, then the cops have a legitimate reason to stop homos from doing it in the parks, in bathrooms, in beaches, and teaching it to kids. Cops are NOT going to be going into peoples' houses to see if they are practicing sodomy. The only reason this case came up in Texas is because homo activists purposely called cops to their house, left the door open, and sodomized each other ON PURPOSE in front of the cops.
If this isn't clear to you, then I assume you don't have children. Because if you had children, you would see the danger to them of learning about the wonders of sodomy in school and on the internet, and the difficulty (in some parts of the country) of going to some beaches, parks and so on because they have turned into "gay" hunting grounds.
Nope. What is one person's common sense (or what they consider sensible pursuit of happiness) is someone else's torment. For instance, sodomy has been considered a criminal act since time immemorial by virtually every civilized society. There's a good reason for that. The argument that there is no need of religion for a civilized society has been shown to be a pipe dream - phantasmagoria - fraud - by communism. This argument is so easy to defeat I could do it with three-quarters of my brain tied behind my back!
I am not being dogmatic. I am not even a "Christian" (in the sense that a lot of people would think) or a Jew. But every monotheistic religion shares certain core values of right and wrong which form the basis of civilized behavior.
Additionally, the so-called "separation of church and state" is a fiction, the whole concept was to prevent the government from having a state supported or controlled church, as was the case in England and many (if not most or all) European countries. The founders were in general pious, whether they would be considered Christians, Jews, or deists. They never meant (and this is easy to find in their writings) that the United States - or any civilized society - can exist if not informed by basic religious principles.
This is really funny - it's as though you are looking in a mirror, accusing others of what is on your own face. Those tactics describe the homo activists to a "T".
I was just reading a book called "The Clash of Orhodoxies". This guy was arguing that when a man and a woman have sex, they become one 'reproductive principal'. I still don't understand it, but you might find it interesting. I tend to think that laws are how society states what is valuable and what is not. If homosexual marriage, a behavior from which no children can issue, is equated with heterosexual marriage, we are essentially stating that procreation is not valuable.
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