Recently, Reina posted a link to a Gallup poll that showed that American's acceptance of "gay relations" had crossed the 50% threshold. While eating lunch, I read this op-ed piece in The New York Times by (ahem) Charles M. Blow. He says that not only have Americans crossed that threshold, but that for the first time, the percentage of men who hold that view is greater than the percentage of women who do, with the biggest shift happening with men between the ages of 18 and 49.
Charles speculates what might have caused such a dramatic shift among men with the help of a couple of experts on human development and men and masculinity. One specuation he called the contact hypothesis. As more and more men become more open about their sexuality, it makes sense that more men in general would come into contact with gay men. Once you get to know a person, it becomes harder to discriminate. This doesn't really explain why the dramatic shift specifically among men.
The second hypthesis is that men are becoming more egalitarian in general. They are becoming more comfortable with people who are different than they are. Also stated is that we are realizing that embracing diversity doesn't necessarily cause the disaster scenarios that are often presented.
The third hypothesis is that those who so forcefully speak out against homosexuality are being exposed for engaging in homosexuality themselves. People like Ted Haggard and George Rekers.
On Reina's post, we also discussed that shows like Glee and Modern Family (and I'll add Brothers & Sisters) are probably doing a lot as well. Glee and Brothers & Sisters especially are exploring the more intricate details of what it means to be gay and the difficulties that arise as a result. They are putting a more human face on the issue of homosexuality.
What do you think? Do you think there really has been a significant shift? What do you think has contributed to the shift?
Also, I had dinner with my friends Lanie and Justin and their kids. We were talking about someone and one of us said that the person was a little bit different. Lanie's oldest, who is 8 asked, "What do you mean different? Does he carry rats around in his pockets?" Yeah, I guess that qualifies as "different".
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when i was a kid there was a girl who lived in my apartment complex who carried rats around in her pockets. i'm not even trying to make that a euphemism. literally, she carried rats in her pockets. my brother and i would spy on her. she stood around on the playground and talked to god, who was "1000 wolves who live in the clouds". she was super weird, but when daniel and i abused our parakeets past the point my parents felt that we should reasonably be able to keep them, we gave them to her and she gave them a really good home.
ReplyDeleteeven differnt people are good :)
I would like to think the main reason people are becoming more accepting is due to the fact that more people know someone who is gay. We benefit so much from exposure to people who are different from us. And it makes it so much harder to discriminate against large groups of people when you can individualize the people and their situation.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the first hypothesis. I'm open already with my all of my friends. They are still cool, although we rarely talk my sexuality. We are still friends because they know I'm a good person and friend.
ReplyDeleteThe more gays come out, the more other people will understand them. It's because those people have chance to "observe" the gays.
But if there are only few gays come out, how could we expect other people understand the gays? Those people will just judge gays by the common stereotype, which is "sex, drugs, and Madonna".
Joned
I am really still not an expert on gay history, but it really seems like a lot of the changes we are seeing now are coming from sacrifices made by people like Harvey Milk. It is hard for people to reject gays when they find out that there is someone that they already know and love in their life that is gay. As Joned pointed out the more people that come out the more that stereotypes are challenged and that is really a good thing.
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