College freshmen continued their decade-old upward trend of
support for gay marriage in fall 2007, according to a mammoth
annual survey of more than 270,000 freshmen at 356 colleges and
universities and just released by the Higher Education Research
Institute (HERI) at the University of California, Los Angeles.
One year earlier, in fall 2006, 61.2 percent of college freshmen
supported "legal marital status" for gay and lesbian couples. By
fall 2007 that percentage had risen by 2.3 percentage points to
63.5 percent.
When the question was first asked in 1997, just 50.9 percent of
freshmen supported "legal marital status" for gays. Except for a
downward blip in 2004 prompted in part by President George W.
Bush's advocacy of a constitutional amendment barring gay marriage,
the percentage of support has risen at an average rate of slightly
over 1 percentage point per year.
The language "legal marital status" was chosen to refer only to
civil unions or civil marriage and avoid the issue of whether
churches should offer religious marriage ceremonies.
The survey also asked whether "it is important to have laws
prohibiting homosexual relationships." Support for such laws fell
from 25.6 percent in fall 2006 to 24.3 percent in fall 2007, a drop
of 1.3 percentage points.
When that question was first asked in 1976, freshman support for
such laws stood at 43.6 percent, so anti-gay attitudes have fallen
nearly 20 points in 30 years. Support for anti-gay laws rose
briefly during the peak years of the AIDS crisis in 1986 and 1987,
but as public anxiety subsided support resumed a steady
decline.
The term "homosexual relationships" is ambiguous, however. In
1976 it clearly referred to sodomy laws since legal gay marriage
was not a public issue. But now that gay marriage is an issue, some
students may take the term to refer to "defense of marriage" laws
limiting marriage to a man and a woman. If so, the continued
decline in support for such laws is especially welcome news.
As in past years, women were far more gay-supportive than men.
More than seven out of ten freshman women (70.3 percent) thought
that gays should have the right to legal marital status. Among
freshman men a smaller 55.3 percent thought gays should have that
right.
Similarly, only 18.1 percent of freshman women-fewer than one
out of five-approved of laws prohibiting homosexual behavior, while
31.8 percent of freshman men approved of such laws. Still, this was
the first year that support among men fell below one-third.
People have speculated about the reason for male/female
differences in attitudes. But two possibilities stand out. When the
term homosexual is used, most people probably think of male
homosexuals. Most heterosexual men are offended by femininity in
other men, so to the extent that gay men are still conceived to be
feminine, they tend to be anti-gay. By contrast, most heterosexual
women do not seem to be bother by male femininity.
The other possibility is that attitudes toward gay men are
influenced by focusing on their sexual behavior, so what has been
called the "yuck factor" that affects many male heterosexuals when
they think of gay sex comes into play and contaminates their public
policy views.
The only obvious way to counter both is for more heterosexuals
to get to know gays as individuals, which would reduce their
tendency to think of gays' behavior in the abstract.
The freshman survey is designed primarily to elicit information
about the freshmen's family and academic background and their
college and career plans. But it does contain a small unit asking
freshmen whether they agree or disagree with statements about more
than a dozen public issues, of which the questions about gay
marriage and sodomy laws are a part.
On other issues of potential interest, 56.9 percent support
legal abortion; 35.1 percent oppose capital punishment;
decriminalized marijuana drew 38.2 percent approval; 25.8 percent
supported raising taxes to reduce the federal deficit; only 31.4
percent think military spending should be increased; and 66.2
percent think that the U.S. military should remain
all-volunteer.
Thirty-two percent of the freshmen described themselves as
"liberal" or "far left," an increase over last year of 1 point,
while the percentage describing themselves as "conservative" or
"far right" fell by a similar 1 point to 24.6 percent. The rest
described themselves as "middle of the road." There was no option
offered for "libertarian" (socially liberal, free-market
advocate).
And finally, exactly 25 percent described themselves as
"Born-Again Christian" and 9.8 percent as "Evangelical." But more
than one-fifth (21.4 percent) described themselves as having "no
religious preference," an all-time high for that category. There
was no option offered for "atheist" or "agnostic."