First published January 29, 2003, in the Chicago Free Press.
AN ANNUAL SURVEY of college freshmen found that last fall's entering freshmen were more accepting of gays and gay relationships than previous freshmen classes have ever been, despite the fact that they describe themselves as somewhat more moderate or conservative than the previous year.
Each year since 1966 the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at the University of California, Los Angeles, has surveyed college freshmen about their background, educational and career plans and social attitudes. The results for fall 2002, just released, are based on 280,000 students at 437 colleges and universities.
This time, asked their opinion about the statement "Same-sex couples should have the right to legal marital status" (i.e., gay civil marriage), 59.3 percent of the freshmen said they agreed, an increase of 1.4 percent over last year and an all time high since the question was first asked in 1997, when only 50.9 percent agreed.
Interestingly enough, although opinion surveys uniformly show that men are less accepting of gays, this year for the first time freshman men's support for gay marriage rose above 50 percent: it stands at 50.8 percent, a two point increase over the previous year. And support by women reached almost two-thirds: 66.3 percent.
On the other gay-related question, the survey asked whether students agreed that "It is important to have laws prohibiting homosexual relationships" (i.e., sodomy laws). Fewer than one-fourth of the freshmen agreed: 24.8 percent. That figure is virtually unchanged from last year's 24.9 percent, but still represents an all-time low since the question was first asked in 1976.
Here too, there was a marked male/female difference: Fewer than one-fifth of the women (18.5 percent) supported sodomy laws, while nearly one-third of the men (32.6 percent) did so. The male/female differences on gay marriage (15.5 points) and sodomy laws (14.1 points) are, except for a question about gun control, the largest in the survey.
As in previous years, freshmen at schools with high entrance standards were far more gay supportive than freshmen at schools with lower entrance standards. That suggests that the better educated, better informed students are, the more likely they are to be accepting of gays.
And freshmen at private universities are more gay supportive than those at public universities. That suggests that parents who are financially better off are able to give their children wider social, cultural and travel experience, increasing their comfort with social and cultural variety.
Both the greater support for gay civil marriage and the sustained high level of disapproval for sodomy laws takes on additional significance since this year's freshmen seem, at first glance, slightly more conservative than last year's.
This year 27.8 percent of freshmen described themselves as "liberal" or "far left," a decrease of 2.1 points from last year's 29.9 percent. And 21.3 percent of the freshmen described themselves as "conservative" or "far right," an increase of 0.6 points. Most freshmen said they were "middle of the road."
With some reason, the HERI analysts attribute this slight political shift to the impact of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. For instance, this year 45 percent of the freshmen agree with the statement "federal military spending should be increased," more than double the 21.4 percent who agreed when the question was last asked in 1993.
But the gay supportive results are anomalous only if "conservative" necessarily means "anti-gay," something that, contrary to progressive left rhetoric, seems less and less true among younger people. Another national survey conducted last year found the same result.
Perhaps more to the point, if this survey's answers are analyzed not as "liberal" versus "conservative" but as "authoritarian" versus "libertarian" - i.e, government intrusion versus leaving individuals alone - then the shifts on gay issue are consistent with many of the other shifts.
For instance: more freshmen this year think marijuana should be legalized and more of them support legal rights for those accused of crimes. At the same time, fewer of this year's freshmen support gun control, campus speech codes, or higher taxes on "wealthy" people.
Taken together these all suggest a slight shift away from reliance on governments or authorities and toward personal autonomy and liberty of action. The slightly increased opposition to sodomy laws and the greater demand for ending government discrimination against gay partners (i.e., government preferential treatment for heterosexual partners) fit with that trend.
Even the new support for higher military spending could be seen as a deeply felt desire to protect traditional American civil, economic and religious liberties from further assault by a violent, authoritarian religious sect.
There may be ideological changes slowly taking place that cannot be captured by the old left/right or progressive/conservative distinctions. If so, we need to avoid letting political labels do our thinking for us. As old Thomas Hobbes once said, "Words are the counters of wise men, but the money of fools."