Big majority now accepts gays

 

The PEW Reseach Center published 13 May 2011 shows an increasing majority of the population favours the acceptance of GLBT. The will of the people should be respected by the various states who would in the next decade be increasingly under pressure to repeal of the laws passed previously against gay marriage. It seems that all the effort of Christian Right against gays in the legislature will come sliding down soon.

On the question on whether gays should be accepted, a large majority of 58% was in the affirmative, with 33% against, and 8% undecided. In the next few years, it is unlikely that the steadfast opposition would change but the undecided would like follow the trend of accepting gays pushing acceptance over the 60% mark.

Perhaps crucial to the future trends is the 18 to 29 years old with 69% accepting gays. The 30 to 39 years old is just above the average with 59% acceptance. In the next decade, based on this trend,the 30 to 39 years will jump to at least 69% or higher pushing the overall acceptance well above 60% (from current 58%).

The last bastion of opposition is the Protestant white evangelicals with only 29% accepting. Coincidentally in a 2008 pew survey question "Which religions lead to eternal life?", a total of 35% of the same white evangelicals say "yes" with regards to people with no religious faith. ie being anti-gay is now so much a core of the evangelicals beyond the Gospel message.

 Another surprising stats is that college grads are 67% accepting versus 26% un-accepting which means that the focus should be education, educating Christians what the bible actually says versus what was preached to them. The increasing insight and reflection on how badly the bible has been mis-translated and mis-interpreted to be ant-gay may play a major role to persuade the undecided 10%.

The younger generations are however educated not by biblical reflection, but by more gay friends coming out at a younger age, their rock stars coming out of the closets as gays, and the increasingly positive message about gays at schools. It is however hard to change beyond 50 years. The anti-gay position of white evangelicals of 29% accepting was effectively balanced by 65% of the White mainline Protestant and 66% of White Catholic being affirming.

The strong anti-gay sentiment in the Singaporean Christian church is due to a large majority of evangelicals especially in the mainline Anglican and Methodist church. There are very few moderate/liberal mainline Protestants as compared to America.

The rejection of gays by the white evangelicals has a strong impact on the Republicans poor overall acceptance of Gays at 40% versus the Democrates at 67%.  However, any move to the right will alienate the younger and moderate/liberal voters. There are now two gay affirmative groups in the Republican party - the Log Cabin Republicans and GOProud. The recent attempt to repeal Pop 8 in California for example was spear headed in part by Ted Olson, a Replublican who was the former solicitor general for President Bush.  The grass roots action by the Republicans supporting gays is a game changer to tip the balance.

We are on a verge of a "slippery" slope of public opinion sliding towards acceptance of gays. With the news of one country after another in South America allowing gay marriage, the tide and call for change gets stronger each day, It gets louder each time gay singers such as Adam Lambert, and Clay Aiken performs on stage. It gets better each time Lady Gaga voices her support for basic gay rights. Getting married is not a special right reserved for the straight people only but a fundamental right for all to fall in love to whom we chose.

 It really gets better all the time.


  

 

 

    

   

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