First appeared in the Chicago Free Press.
THE PEW RESEARCH CENTER recently released a group of polls assessing public attitudes on a variety of issues, trying to categorize voters according to their opinions, attitudes and demographic characteristics.
According to the center, its most significant finding was that voters now are more moderate and less extreme and angry than they were five years ago.
"Centrism, so characteristic of post-war American politics, is back. More moderation is not only apparent among Independents, but also evident on the right and the left," the center announced. What mainstream press coverage of the polls failed to notice was the finding of a slow but ongoing shift in public sentiment toward accepting gays.
As they say on public radio's "Marketplace," "Let's look at the numbers!"
The most general question on gays asked how much people agreed or disagreed with the statement, "Homosexuality is a way of life that should be accepted by society."
In eight Pew Research Center surveys from 1994 to 1997, between 44 percent and 47 percent agreed with the statement, while the number disagreeing hovered slightly higher, between 48 percent and 50 percent.
By the summer of 1999, however, the relative strengths had decisively reversed, with 49 percent agreeing that homosexuality should be accepted and 44 percent saying it should not be.
Although the change is small, it should be encouraging because it shows that gays are continuing to make progress.
This particular change, though, may be even more significant. Political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann suggests in her remarkable book "The Spiral of Silence" that people have a fairly keen sense for what most other people are thinking on issues and tend to shift in that direction themselves.
If that is true, then at long last we are over some sort of hump and instead of fighting against a public mood, we now have the public mood "on our side," as it were, gently luring people that way.
Not surprisingly, 54 percent of Democrats agree that homosexuality should be accepted, and only 35 percent of Republicans. But even among Republicans 35 percent is not bad for a question about "acceptance" - not merely "toleration."
Interestingly, self-identified Independents are even more pro-gay than Democrats: 55 percent think gays should be accepted.
Other gay-related questions suggest the same trend. For instance, back in 1987 51 percent thought school boards ought to be able to fire teachers who were "known homosexuals." The percentage agreeing dropped to 32 percent by this fall, while 62 percent disagreed - nearly a 2-1 pro-gay proportion.
The particularly interesting thing about this question is that it immediately follows questions about the existence of God, the importance of prayer, Judgment Day and miracles, all of which condition people to give a religiously based or moralistic answer to the gay school teacher question rather than a secular civic one - and gays still come out far ahead.
More remarkable still, this pro-gay change took place during a decade of increasing religious sentiment. Not only did more people describe themselves as "religious," but the already large majority of religious people became somewhat more certain about their beliefs.
That suggests either more religious people are accepting gays or more people are distinguishing between homosexuality and their religious/moral views, perhaps seeing homosexuality as some sort of personal matter.
Neither explanation offers much comfort for the religious right or politicians who try to play to their sensibilities.
A third survey question asked whether the respondent considered himself or herself "a supporter of the gay rights movement."
In 1987, 66 percent said they definitely were not gay movement supporters. By 1994 that number fell to 56 percent. And by this summer only 50 percent insisted they were not gay movement supporters.
During the same time period, the number saying they were gay movement supporters shifted upward from a minuscule 9 percent to 17 percent.
This means gays have picked up a sizable number of heterosexual supporters. But it also means, of course, that there are a lot of people somewhere in the middle: 31 percent of the population is skeptical, or uncertain, or selective, or just plain not interested in gays as a movement.
In any case, it is useful to notice that this drop in anti-gay sentiment occurred even though the number of liberals did not change, the number of conservatives increased and support for the "pro-life movement" (the questionnaire's wording) increased.
What did correlate with the rise in gay movement support was the sizable increase of people who said they supported "the women's movement." That number rose from 29 percent in 1987 to 41 percent this summer.
Finally the survey asked, "Do you have a friend, colleague or family member who is gay?" To that, 60 percent said "no," and 39 percent said "yes." This is appallingly low considering the number of friends, colleagues and family members each gay person has.
What is significant though is when the Pew Center broke voters down into categories, the groups that were most pro-gay also had the highest percentage of people who said they had a gay friend or family member.
For instance, 60 percent of the group Pew labeled "Liberal Democrats" said they had gay friends and 88 percent said homosexuality should be accepted by society. That was the highest percentage in each category.
Similarly, 52 percent of the Republican leaning "New Prosperity Independents" said they had gay friends and they were the most "socially tolerant" group on that side of the spectrum. So we continue to find a correlation between knowing gays and supporting gay acceptance. Keep that in mind.