New Polling Shows Millennials Overwhelmingly Support Comprehensive LGBT Nondiscrimination Protections
Posted by Melanie Nathan, April 7, 2015.
Despite historic progress on marriage equality over the past decade, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, or LGBT, individuals still lack basic, enumerated protections from discrimination in several areas of life, from the workplace to the public marketplace. However, new Generation Progress polling, conducted by Hart Research and released today in a Center for American Progress column reveals widespread support among Millennials for federal, comprehensive LGBT nondiscrimination legislation.
According to the poll, 65 percent of Millennials support comprehensive nondiscrimination protections. Furthermore, 50 percent of Millennials strongly support such legislation, answering between 8 and 10 on a 0-to-10 scale, with 5 as neutral or undecided. Majority support extends to every region of the country, as well as to rural, urban, and suburban areas. Among voters who supported President Barack Obama in 2012, comprehensive LGBT nondiscrimination protections maintain the highest level of strong support of all issues polled.
“While the events surrounding Indiana’s religious liberty law were a stark reminder that LGBT Americans can be legally discriminated against, it is far from the only state in the nation where that is possible,” said Laura E. Durso, Director of CAP’s LGBT Research and Communication Project. “Even with the purported fixes to the Indiana law signed late last week, it is still legal to deny housing, employment, and services to LGBT Americans based solely on their sexual orientation and gender identity in roughly 30 states—Indiana included. This poll shows that a huge majority of the next generation of leaders and voters believe that nondiscrimination protections for LGBT Americans should be the law of the land throughout the country.”
Recent events in states such as Indiana demonstrate the need for immediate federal action to combat confusion and to provide clear and uniform nationwide protections. In 2014, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) announced his intention to introduce legislation that would provide comprehensive nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people and their families, and the Center for American Progress released a report calling for comprehensive nondiscrimination protections at the state and federal levels.
Click here to read the column.
Reblogged this on Fairy JerBear's Queer World News, Views & More From The City Different – Santa Fe, NM and commented:
I have definitely observed this myself. I have real faith in the future as it is going to be lead by leaders and a populace that is much more tolerant then my generation. ..
I still don’t think we’ve done a good job of answering those who favor the right to discriminate against us on religious grounds. Here, let me try:
Over the past few months, we’ve seen anti-GLBT (and since when did the Lesbians get to go first in the acronymn?) activitsts come out with a “parade of horribles” showing how terrible life would be, if they were not allowed to discriminate.
From Mike Huckabee: “If a man comes into a kosher deli and demands the Jewish deli owner has to serve him bacon, does he have to?” Answer: No, but then the Jewish deli doesn’t sell ham to anyone. Protections for gays (and yes, Lesbians, too), is not about forcing you to do something you do not normally do, but about who you serve in the public.
Second example (one I dreamed up), If a Wiccan couple demanded that a photographer photograph their wedding and told the photographer that the guests would be “Sky Clad” (I trust we all know what that means), and that they wanted the photographer to do so, would he have to? Answer, again: No. The photographer can politely state that he does not photograph ANYONE in the nude, and that he or she does not run around naked in public. Again, there’s no lawsuit, here.
What’s really going on is that the anti-queer folks refuse to accept that a same-sex marriage IS a marriage, therefore they do not equate what they do with what we ask of them. That ship has sailed, however. And courts have LONG since accepted that societies may regulate commerce and prohibit discrimination.
No one is asking anyone to “participate in homosexual sex” or anything of the sort: when I marry, it will not be an endorsement of homosexuality, it’s the other way around: I wil be endorsing “marriage,” that “institution for those who ought to have been institutionalized to begin with.”
I admit the truth, though: I would not want someone who doest not recognize and accept my pending marriage to have ANYTHING to do with my wedding, including catering it. As a conservative, I also decry trial lawyers with run-away jury verdicts and would prefer injunctions and fines more in keeping with reality. However, that’s sometimes how you get people’s attention, and I’ll leave that matter to the jury. And honestly, we are a minority, so it’s a minor inconvenience for a store owner to express their hatred of us. Hey, if you’re going to discriminate against someone, make SURE that you do it to a tiny minority that you can pick on!
And yes, if we’re going to have to answer the “parade of horribles,” raised by those who hate us, we should suggest one of our own: I personally know of churches that oppose inter-racial marriage. Does that mean that the religious would now have the right to say “God does not want me to participate in that marriage,” and to post large signs on their establishments stating their bigotry and biast? I guess like most gays, I’ve learned to tune out the bigotry and bias of the religious right (with whom I have NO affiliation, any more), and I actually feel far more offended by racism, these days. It is threatening to be mistreated as a gay, but these days it’s “pathetic” as well, that these people would even feel the desire to do so.
Reblogged this on Daily Queer News.