GAY WRITERS, newspapers, and organizations tend to emphasize the bad things that happen in life. And 2001 was, in some ways, a bad year for gays. The fourth largest city in the country, Houston, voted to ban health and other benefits for the same-sex domestic partners of gay city employees. The military maintained -- at least officially -- its "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy despite the wartime need for personnel.
Nevertheless, tucked away in news summaries about anti-gay ballot initiatives and the latest tussles with the Boy Scouts, three little items might have escaped your attention. Each is good news, though some observers out there will manage to find the cloud in the silver lining. Here they are:
(1) Survey shows gays feel more accepted. The Kaiser Family Foundation recently polled by telephone 405 randomly selected, self-identified gays in 15 major U.S. cities. Pollsters interviewed the subjects about their experience of discrimination and their encounters with verbal and physical abuse. The survey found that 76 percent of gay people believe they are more accepted now by their fellow Americans than they were a few years ago.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation's survey of the general population, more Americans than ever before report knowing someone who is gay: 62 percent now say they have a gay friend or acquaintance, as compared to 55 percent three years ago and just 24 percent in 1983.
Gay Americans are heeding the call to come out of the closet. And that honesty appears to be paying off in the form of unquestionably softened public attitudes about homosexuality.
Skeptics will point out that the Kaiser survey hardly eliminates doubts about how deep acceptance of homosexuality really is. There are, to begin, the usual questions about survey methodology. Because the survey required gay people to identify themselves as gay (query: what survey of gay people could avoid the reliance on self-identification?) the sample might have been skewed and the results therefore flawed.
But it's hardly clear which way the "flaw" of reliance on self-identification would cut in a survey asking respondents whether they feel accepted. On the one hand, those homosexuals with enough self-confidence to reveal their sexual orientation to a stranger over the phone may overestimate the degree to which others accept them; further, they may have sought out jobs and circles of friends where they really are more accepted. On the other hand, because of their openness, these same people may encounter more overt hostility than gays who remain closeted.
Also, the survey had some bad news. Some 74 percent of the respondents said they had encountered anti-gay verbal abuse, and 32 percent said they had been subjected to physical abuse or property destruction because of their sexual orientation.
But because we don't know when these incidents occurred, and because we have no comparative data from the past, it's hard to know whether there has been deterioration on the abuse front. It's possible that as more gays come out, especially in smaller towns and rural areas, they will be easier targets for the remaining homophobes who mean to do them harm. This suggests rising acceptance may paradoxically accompany a transient rise in hate crimes.
(2) Survey says gays are richer than straights. A new online survey of 6,300 self-identified gay respondents sponsored by OpusComm Group in cooperation with Syracuse University has found that the median combined annual household income among gay couples is $65,000. That's 60 percent higher than the U.S. median household income.
This might sound like good news. It suggests that, whatever obstacles gays face in life, we have overcome them to a large extent.
But the survey met immediate criticism. Dr. Lee Badgett, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, lambasted the survey's methodology, arguing that Internet users are not representative in that they tend to be wealthier and better educated than the general population. Badgett's own research has shown that individual gay men make less on the job than straight men. On the other hand, Badgett's research has also shown that gay women earn about the same as straight women (though both groups earn less than men).
The OpusComm Group defends its methodology by pointing out that, as Internet use has become more common, Internet users have become more representative of the general population. They also say the sheer size of the sample makes it more reliable than a smaller survey would be.
What's at stake in this debate? For gay magazines and newspapers, it's about luring potential advertisers who lust after wealthy readers. For gay civil rights advocates, however, surveys like this undercut the case for employment discrimination protection. If we're already better off, why do we need civil rights laws to make us equal?
(3) Survey says gay teens are less suicidal than we thought. Two new studies debunk the common assertion of gay civil rights groups that gay teens are three times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight peers. The studies, conducted by a Cornell University psychologist, found that gay teens are only slightly more likely to attempt suicide. Research heretofore on the topic had interviewed teens from support groups or shelters, where the most troubled youths are found.
The Cornell studies concluded that gay youth do indeed have more difficult lives. "But most gay kids are healthy and resilient," says the researcher, Ritch Savin-Williams. He adds that studies exaggerating their suicide risk "pathologize gay youth, and that's not fair to them."
Evidence, even if not conclusive, of increasing acceptance, higher levels of income, and less dramatic suicide rates may not serve the cause of portraying gays as helpless victims of homophobia in need of state protection. But, to the extent we can trust this new evidence, it gives some reason for cheer this season.