Flunking gay rights 101

[papapi]

An interesting article from the Washington Blade. Apparently there are many in the GLBT community who aren't aware of the laws governing their lives. I find the 2.9% figure very difficult to believe.

Flunking gay rights 101
New survey reveals most of us are clueless about the status of our rights under the law

JOAN GARRY
Friday, May 30, 2008

HUNTER COLLEGE JUST released the results of a comprehensive study, touted by that institution as the most comprehensive study of lesbian, gay and bisexual attitudes and behavior to date.

When the results went public, the headline news was its finding that roughly 2.9 percent of Americans are lesbian, gay or bisexual. Instinctively that number feels low to me (my kids might argue, in the context of that stat, that I know all the gay people in America).

But this is not the finding of most interest to me. And it’s certainly not the most disturbing statistic.

Respondents to the survey who identified as gay were tested on their knowledge regarding the law as it relates to their rights. They were asked four questions. And no, the first one was not “why are you as a person different from all other people?”

Rather than give you the answers, I’ll pose the questions, so you can play along. For each question below, see if you know the answer. And then, for each question, guess what percentage of gay people surveyed answered the question correctly.

Ready? Here goes.

1. Is marriage between two men or two women legal in your state?
2. Can gay men and lesbians serve openly in the military?
3. Does the U.S. Constitution have an amendment that bans same-sex marriage?
4. Is there a national law making it illegal to fire someone for being lesbian, gay or bisexual?

OK, I’ll give you a minute. … Time’s up.

Here are the answers:

1. If you are from California, you should have gotten that one right. Massachusetts is the only other state where U.S. gays can legally marry. A small number of other states offer civil unions and other kinds of relationship recognition. No one gets the federal benefits of marriage and if you move from California or Massachusetts to another state, best of luck to you. They won’t have a clue what to do with your marriage license. See, I told you it was complicated.
2. Gay and lesbian people CANNOT serve openly in the military (even my mother knows that one).
3. There is currently no constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. But if a Republican is inaugurated on 1/20/09, all bets are off.
4. There is no national law protecting a gay person from being fired.

OK, so there are the answers. How did you do?

I sure hope you did better than the gay people surveyed by the gifted Ken Sherrill and his colleagues at Hunter.

Only 38 percent of gay men and lesbians answered all four questions correctly.

Let me say that again in a different way.

Sixty-two percent of the gay people surveyed are clueless about their own rights.

For those of you who think the big challenge of the gay rights movement is to educate straight people about the rights and protections we don’t have, I suggest you think again.

Not that this isn’t a challenge. A straight friend of mine, who assumed she had aced the quiz, answered question four incorrectly. “I really did think that a national law passed a few years ago.”

My straight friend is in good company.

Or should I say, poorly informed company. Forty-one percent of the LGB people surveyed thought that law passed years ago, too.

I struggle to understand how this could possibly be. A college student who reads my blog offered this explanation: “I bet a lot of LGBT students here would flunk the test. I think it’s in part a lamentable side effect of increasing acceptance of LGBT people. They come out early, their parents are OK with it and they therefore think they can live their lives just like everyone else — marriage, suburbs, picket fence, no problem at all. So they know zip about gay rights … and assume everything will be hunky dory.”

Hunter College offers this explanation: “ … Research generally finds that Americans tend to be poorly informed about politics.”

This ain’t politics, folks. It’s about the laws relating to where you work, how you live, who you love. I wouldn’t use the word “politics.” I’d use the word “life.”

The survey was conducted in the midst of one of the most exciting political seasons in which Democratic candidates talked quite a bit about gay people. It is beyond embarrassing to think that Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama seem to know more about our rights (or lack thereof) than we do.

We aren’t paying enough attention.

You can’t fight for what you don’t have if you don’t know you don’t have it.

http://www.washingtonblade.com/2008/5-30/view/editorial/12655.cfm

[Beregond2]

1. I don't believe those results for a second.

I'd have to see the methodology used, but there is no way anyone with any common sense at all wouldn't know the answers to those questions. And 2.9%? LOL!

[papapi]

2. I have to agree. It does seem impossible....

....for this to be true. Interesting enough, you and I are the only ones who have responded. I thought this might get much more negative response about the data, who was actually polled, age groups, etc. But so far,

[insleeforprez]

10. Re: 2.9%

I can believe that 2.9% of the population is openly GLBT (which is all that you'll get for a survey like this). Add in another few % for people that are in the closet to others, and another few % for people who are in the closet to themselves. It's believable.

[Athelwulf]

3. I feel kinda stupid. :(

I'm gay, I'm deeply concerned about my rights, and I would've had to guess on number four. I honestly didn't know if there were any federal laws protecting the right of LGBT people to work. My cynicism probably would have given me an unfair advantage here though. I know for a fact that there are such laws in Oregon, my home state. And I know the state constitution says that same-sex marriages are not valid, and that only a statute bans it on the federal level, meaning same-sex married couples in Massachusetts can't file their federal taxes as married couples.

So I like to think I'm pretty knowledgeable on the subject, but I feel bad about not knowing number four. :(

[papapi]

4. Our issues rarely get much national press coverage, so you can't fault yourself entirely...

...and during the last eight years there's been so much scandal in Washington to be sensationalized in the press. Not to mention the suppression of the GLBT community the repugnantcans practice 24/7.

[Athelwulf]

5. After I've thought about it...

... I've realized that it seems almost obvious that LGBT people aren't guaranteed by federal law the right to work. If we were, then there wouldn't be a push to make it so. There almost certainly wouldn't have been a need for Oregon to make it so, that's for sure.

[Occulus]

7. Want your blood to REALLY boil?

Go Google "full faith and credit clause", as it relates to the US Constitution. Then, try to reconcile that with the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

:grr:

[dsc]

6. this doesn't surprise me in the least

It is very rare to find a straight person who does know that gays can be fired simply for being gay. Since it doesn't publicly happen much and since many corps have inclusive policies of their own volition, many straights and presumedly gays as well, beleive it is required. I would think the other three questions got more accurate answers.

[NMDemDist2]

8. thanks to GayUSA on DishNetwork I did know all that stuff

:bounce:

Ann & Andy rawk!

[hulklogan]

9. The headline should be "Gay Americans just as uninformed as Straight Americans"

I don't think the results would be any different if the study involved straight people and asked them questions with answers that have been similarly fuzzied by the media.