The Pew Research just shat out a bunch of charts that show how every political, ideological, generational and religious group has become more supportive of gay marriage. Every group, that is, except for white evangelical Protestants (13 percent to 12 percent) and Generation X (49 percent to 46 percent).
What gives, Generation X? The late 60s to late 70s gave you Harvey Milk, James Baldwin, Martina Navratilova, and Elton John… and this is how you repay us??!! Ingrates.
Kent M
What’s the sample size? What’s the population of each slice of that sample? What’s the margin of error and confidence level of each subpopulation? This is meaningless with out that.
MikeE
Bah, the gen-X information is probably a glitch in how they collected the data. I know strictly no one of my generation who is against marriage equality.
B
QUEERTY asked “What gives, Generation X?” The answer is possibly nothing – neither the QUEERTY article nor the source it linked to gave the sample sizes for each group. The apparent drop might just be sampling error (besides the sample size, you need to know if they asked the same individuals each year or picked a different group each year).
The increase in the group called “The Silent Generation” (which had the lowest number in favor) might be explained by the older members of that group dying off, assuming that the older they are, the more homophobic they are on the average.
Red Meat
Can’t wait for these old farts to die, in a cynical way I hope they repeal healthcare before it goes into effect so they can kill themselves for some poetic justice. Cancer? Fuck you, use all of your 401k.
Kurt
Red Meat you should follow your own advice.
Leave it to Queerty to produce graphs, charts, and surveys but then not actually show the data or sample size of people in the actual study or survey.
RLS
Haha I love that everyone is doubting the validity of the information here, but people seemed to suck down those bullshit “blacks passed prop 8” “statistics” even long after they were disproven.
Andy
I think everyone needs to chill out.
Yes, we’re all really research-savvy and know to ask for sample sizes, standard deviations, and methodological info, but Queerty is just reporting about charts that Pew created. You can’t pull numbers out of nowhere if you’re not provided with them. On the other hand, yes, Queerty could have contacted Pew to get some of the specifics everyone is asking for.
matt
This appears to be just the data from their 2011 political typology survey presented in a new way, here is the info on that survey.
“Most of the analysis in the 2011 Typology Report is based on telephone interviews conducted February 22 – March 1, 2011 and March 8-14, 2011 among a national sample of 3,029 adults 18 years of age or older living in the continental United States (2,026 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 1,003 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 455 who had no landline telephone). In addition to the main survey, some results are based on a callback survey where an attempt was made to re-interview respondents to the original survey. This short follow-up survey, conducted April 7-10, 2011 obtained interviews with 1,432 respondents from the original typology survey.”
http://www.people-press.org/2011/05/04/beyond-red-vs-blue-the-political-typology/
matt
That would be the data for 2011, to get the rest you’d have to dig back farther, but it’s all freely available on their site.
http://pewresearch.org/
Carl
@Red Meat: As a member of Gen X who knows NO ONE in my age range who opposes equal human rights, I think I can safely suggest that you take your own advice and pop your clogs, Red Meat – it would certainly improve your attitude.
Tone
The Gen X data point must be an anomaly. I came of age in the mid-80’s and I refuse to believe that my generation, doubly screwed as we are by the boomers and our own ironic cynicism, is less affirming than my parents.
Tommy Shepherd
Well Gen X is still at 46% which is higher than the baby boomers and the silent generation, and you have to rely on margins of error for these sorts of surveys – at best they give an idea of a vague trend.
So leave us Xers alone – we have enough to worry about – or I’ll get my friend Winona to come round your house and read her angsty poetry to you all night.
Avenger
Ingrates? How do you figure? If this data is true, then I’m glad the X’ers aren’t buying into this gay marriage crap as much as you’d expect or like. Don’t assume that people support you.
jj
Actually, it doesn’t surprise me in the least. Living in middle America, I regularly meet members of Generation X who are not at all inclusive when it comes to same sex relationships, race, religion or politics. Remember, they’re getting older as well. With age comes wisdom but also fear.
Tackle
Funny how people are questioning (which they should)the accuracy of the research. This past Auguest, Queerty ran a post about the CDC reporting the rising rates of AIDS in “young Black & bisexual men. Using a very small sample of men from 2009. Not one person(other than myself) questioned the validity of the research. And if this research was flipped above, to where it said, “Black Protestants” are less supportive than any other group, I “seriously” doubt people would be questioning,
What’s the sample size?
What’s the population of each slice of the sample?
What’s the margin of error?
Whats’ the confidence level of each subpopulation?
If they asked the same individuals each year?
Or picked a different groupe each year?
Old members of a group dying off.
Are we dealing with Generation X or the Silent Generation? etc.etc.etc.
Dealing with negative information about some groups, questions will never be asked. The information will be accepted. With a smile on thr face.
Tackle
Typo: (the)
randy
I would say the graphs are suspect because of wide variance from year to year on some of the lines. Last year, white evangelicals supported marriage equality at 20%, but this year they are down to 12%? That’s a hefty drop, without any explanation as to why. The only other drops in 2011 where within a few percentage points and the margin of error.
I can’t believe that in one year one-third of evangelicals switched from supporting us to doing the opposite. Additionally, most polls shows a slight majority of all Americans supporting SSM, but that doesn’t seem reflected in this poll.
Something is wrong here.
Jollysocks
The middle America Gen-X’ers are not as tolerant as they would have you believe. And even the X’ers on our side are soft supporters that would easily vote for a Republican even if he/she had a horrific record on LGBT rights. They are a very selfish generation.
The Millennials are selfish too, but they grew up in a time where anti-gay animus is as uncool as being a racist. They are the ones who are our future foot soldiers, who give a fuck about us, and get pissed when we get pissed on. Unfortunately, some of them are not 18 yet.
My sister’s age group (she’s 14) is extremely pro-equality and they are growing up in a time when gays are not only on TV 24/7, they also have many openly gay friends who are coming out at younger and younger ages. They are aware of anti-gay crimes and suicides on facebook, on youtube, they are more exposed to it than younger generations and it sickens them.
Once her generation reaches 18, the old hateful bigots will be wondering what happened cause the polls will shift wildly against them even further.
RT
I don’t want to say that bloggers have the same responsibility to the truth as journalists. Hence why, everytime, this editor writes about anything, the title always comes with the “shock value.” Then, the article is not substantiated with comprehensive data, basically to rouse up the readers into “righteous” anger.
So, I am not entirely sure if we should let this guy just write about whatever he wants as long as it served his cause, or say something about incompetence in producing a solid article.
I don’t understand why the title couldn’t have said something like, “A new study is out illustrating the change in attitude in marriage equality in respective to generation, religious/race aspect.” No, it had to say, “white evangelicals.”
The readers are already outraged about inequality. But this study was done to show that it is getting better. The editor deliberately chose to write this title JUST so he could incite outrage.
sean
This chart would indicate that the older you are the less likely you are to support marriage equality. Gen x’ers have decreased proportionately by a few percent, but still remain more likely to support marriage equality.
It would be interesting to know why the data suggests this, and whether it is an error or an actual phenomenon. Either way, queerty needs to back off the gen x and start raging against the very old and the white evangelicals who are actually the least likely to support us.
Ps. Data may be inaccurate, as I haven’t read the source.
Joetx
I think the whole generation labeling is arbitrary & stupid. So someone born in ’65 has more in common w/ someone born in ’80 – someone born in the same “generation – than w/ someone born in ’64? I don’t think so.
BTW, in case you haven’t noticed w/ the rash of suicides by gay young people, the Millennials aren’t such a great group of folks either.
SBC19
I keep on hearing how “tolerant” so-called ‘Millennials’ are, and how “uncool” it is to their demographic to be anti-gay…yet all these gay teen suicides as the result of bullying are happening FROM their age group. Every time you hear about some 16 year old who kills himself, some naive older gay person is all shocked and speechless, because he had been led to believe that being gay was no longer an issue for the younger generation. Then after the story dies down, he goes right back to burying his head in that idealistic pillow that leads him to believing that we’re on the cusp of post-homophobic society…until another gay teen suicide happens.
The liberal media likes to spin. They get on their blogs and create prime time storylines for television posturing the notion that acceptance of LGBT is the “in” thing now…seeming almost like an attempt to manipulate society into thinking its true so that it will act accordingly. The real world isn’t as compliant. I recently went back to college, and am around 18-22 year olds all time, and guess what? I still see the same callous anti-gay implications that were they were I was their age back in the 1990s. Society hasn’t come as far as some people like to think and perpetuate.
sean
@Joetx: I agree, this only maps trends, but it could be helpful showing who we need to advertise toward/focus on when nom and co are lying about us while collecting signatures.
Steve
Now, how did I know that esteemed journalist Daniel Villarreal wrote this?
Allen
I am a pro gay marriage, 68 year old. Most of my siblings are either pro gay or non comittal, but I know of only one that would be anti. I have a nephew who has an openly gay relationship with his partner, in fact an church ceremony they called a marriage, but not sanctioned by the state in which they live (Idaho). The rest of the family generally accept the two as part of the family. That is quite a bit to say inasmuch as most members of our family are mormon. By the way, my name is Allen, and I’m an ex-mormon. You can guess why.
B
No. 22 · SBC19 wrote, “I keep on hearing how ‘tolerant’ so-called ‘Millennials’ are, and how ‘uncool’ it is to their demographic to be anti-gay…yet all these gay teen suicides as the result of bullying are happening FROM their age group.
Decades ago the teen suicides resulting from bullying would have studiously avoided any hint that a teen was being bullied for being gay, so you have to be careful: you might simply be seeing more accurate reporting of what transpired. That can give you an apparent increase in the rate when the rate is actually dropping.
Also, the kids doing the bullying in general are usually not particularly popular with their peers as most probably try to avoid such people, if only out of a sense of self preservation – while they may pick on one kid for being gay, they’ll find some other excuse for someone who isn’t.