Has America finally crossed the Rubicon?
Yes, another one.
According to a new survey conducted by Gallup; "Americans' support for the moral acceptability of gay and lesbian relations crossed the symbolic 50% threshold in 2010. At the same time, the percentage calling these relations "morally wrong" dropped to 43%, the lowest in Gallup's decade-long trend."
The pollster's annual Values and Beliefs survey shows there has been a significant increase in public acceptance of gay relationships since 2006. But they note that the most marked the change is among men, particularly men under 50, where it's up by 20 points to 62%.
New York Times' columnist Charles M Blow thinks this is "stunning".
I think he's right.
Blow argues that much of this attitudinal change is down to "The contact hypothesis"; "As more men openly acknowledge that they are gay, it becomes harder for men who are not gay to discriminate against them. And as that group of openly gay men becomes more varied — including athletes, celebrities and soldiers — many of the old, derisive stereotypes lose their purchase. To that point, a Gallup poll released last May found that people who said they personally knew someone who was gay or lesbian were more likely to be accepting of gay men and lesbians in general and more supportive of their issues."
He concludes; "It’s like being antigay is becoming the old gay. Not cool."
But Blow puts this down to the fact that "virulent homophobes are increasingly being exposed for engaging in homosexuality", citing as examples the "disgraced" evangelist preacher Ted Haggard and George Rekers, the anti-gay Baptist minister who was caught taking a rent boy on a European vacation last month.
But doesn't that mean that many young men now think that homophobia is... gay?
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