First published January 30, 2004, in the Chicago Free Press.
Each September during freshman orientation, the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA conducts a survey of more than 275,000 first-year college students, asking questions about their backgrounds, education and career plans, and views on controversial social issues.
Among the questions is one which asks whether "it is important to have laws prohibiting homosexual relationships" and one added in 1997 that asks whether "same sex couples should have the right to legal marital status" - essentially civil unions or civil marriage.
It was reasonable to wonder if this year's freshmen would show diminished support for gay equality. The Supreme Court decision last June decriminalizing sodomy was immediately denounced by conservative and evangelical leaders not only for its substance but even more for opening the door to gay marriage, a possibility characterized as a threat to "family values."
At least as of September the freshmen did not seem to have been impressed by that alarmist message. Support for "laws prohibiting homosexual relationships," probably interpreted as Defense of Marriage laws, rose just 1.3 points over last year's freshmen to a not very impressive 26.1 percent. So barely one-fourth of the freshman think it is necessary to prohibit formalized gay partnerships.
And freshman support for "legal marital status" for gay couples remained essentially unchanged at 59.4 percent. That figure is actually a minute increase over last year's 59.3 percent, but the change is statistically negligible. In any case, it means that six out of ten college freshmen support gay civil marriage.
It is encouraging to notice that that level of support continues even as the proportion of freshmen describing themselves as liberal or "far left" fell slightly to 27 percent and the proportion describing themselves as conservative or "far right" rose 1.4 points to 22.7 percent. Almost exactly half (50.3 percent) describe themselves as "middle of the road."
This means two-thirds of the "middle of the road" freshmen continue to favor "legal marital status" for gays. So support for gay civil unions or gay civil marriage is - for college freshmen - the "middle of the road" position.
As in every other survey, women are more gay-friendly than men. More than two-thirds of freshman women - 66.9 percent - support "legal marital status" for gays, an increase of 0.6 over last year. That increase was canceled out by an identical decrease of 0.6 points from last year among freshman men, down to 50.2 percent - still more than half.
Also as in all previous years, bright freshmen are more gay-supportive than less bright freshmen. Both men and women at public and private universities requiring high SAT scores are 8 percentage points more likely to support "legal marital status" for gays than freshmen at universities with lower SAT requirements.
It is worth stepping back to ask what these figures could tell us. For one thing, the steady progress of gay-support paused. Here are the percentages of freshmen favoring civil marriage for gays:
- 1997 - 50.9 percent.
- 1998 - 52.4 percent.
- 1999 - 53.9 percent.
- 2000 - 56 percent.
- 2001 - 57.9 percent.
- 2002 - 59.3 percent.
- 2003 - 59.4 percent.
The survey was taken two months after the Supreme Court's sodomy law decision so the conservative reaction may have had some influence. Since then, anti-gay pressure has mounted in reactions to gay Episcopal bishop and the Massachusetts decision on gay marriage, so a survey now might show slightly lower support.
Many thoughtful people think a majority of Americans have not had time to become comfortable with gay progress. Young people who grow up knowing gays and seeing them on television don't have to adapt: this is the world they know. But for adults, becoming comfortable with social change is a slow process and some never adjust.
Alan Ebenstein, biographer of social philosopher Friedrich Hayek e-mailed me, "In many respects, the societies of today practice more toleration, acceptance, and celebration of homosexuals and homosexuality than almost any in history. ... (But) the social changes of the past 40 years or so have been too great in too short a period of time from a system that was in many, if not all, respects working tolerably for there not to be some sort of a social reaction."
Certainly the hesitation we are seeing is to be expected and we may see a brief downturn in support. But I think if we continue to expand our gay visibility, share our lives calmly and openly, and work to create empathy for our desire for an equal chance for happiness and a meaningful life, we can make sufficient progress among the young who keep coming along to counter-balance and overcome the anxiety reaction among older Americans.
I think we currently have sufficient support to block a constitutional gay marriage ban. But in any case an open debate can only gain us additional support. And in the long run, with the turnover of the generations eventually the majority of Americans will be comfortable enough with us to see that we richly deserve the same legal opportunities they have.