According to a new Washington Post/ABC poll (of 1,001 adults questioned via telephone), four percent of respondents said a gay Supreme Court nominee would be a “positive” development; 22 percent stated it would be a “strongly negative” factor. And of course, The Olds, The Whites, and The Republicans hate the idea even more: “Senior citizens are more likely to consider a gay nominee a negative (34 percent, compared with 26 percent among those ages 40 to 64 and 19 percent among those younger than 40), as are Republicans (44 percent say it is a factor against) and white evangelicals (51 percent). Seven in 10 say it would not be a factor if the nominee were gay.” The same poll revealed eight-in-ten respondents saying it’s unimportant “whether the nominee is a woman, an African American or a Protestant.” [WaPo]
survey says
America Doesn’t Care If Obama Picks a Female, Black, or Protesant Supreme Court Justice. But a Gay?!
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CHIP1218
Remember, this is what people say to the pollster…not what they REALLY believe!
AlanInSLCUtah
@CHIP1218: EXACTLY!
Brutus
“Seven in 10 say it would not be a factor if the nominee were gay.”
How does this make sense with the other statistics cited? The sample size of this study is not large enough.
MikenStL
@Brutus:
At first blush, I agreed with you but then I did a few ruff calculations and if we assume (yes I know the ass you me joke lol) that the poll was 45% Rep. 45% Dem., and 10% other; that would be ~450 450 and 100 . 44% of 450 is ~200 Rep. saying it’s a neg. throw in another 100 from the Dem and others would give 300 out of 1000 saying it’s a neg or 7 out of 10 saying it’s either not a factor, or a positive factor.
So the stats may be correct, but I am still skeptical if this attempted in “real life” and not just hypothetically.
Brutus
@MikenStL
Yeah, it can be worked out, but if only 30% of 1,001 thought it was an issue, I feel like that doesn’t justify all the parsing by age group and “white evangelical” status. More research needed.
Or not, since we’re not getting an openly gay SCOTUS nominee for decades.
AlwaysGay
Heterosexuals lie. What they tell pollsters about anything relating to gay people is far more postive than their actual views. The fact is very few heterosexuals want gay people to be on a level playing field with them. They want everything to be stacked against gay people and in favor of heterosexuals.
Paschal
@AlwaysGay: Saying very few straight people are in favour of equality for gay people is going over the top. Certainlt there is a large number but there are alot of straight allies.
Paschal
@AlwaysGay: Saying very few straight people are in favour of equality for gay people is going over the top. Certainlt there is a large number but there are a lot of straight allies.
Baxter
I wish they would give more numbers to work with here. I’m curious about how a gay SC nominee fares with other racial groups besides white evangelicals or with Democrats, so I have something to compare these numbers to. They’re kind of worthless in a vacuum.
Wade MacMorrighan
Just like the Christians and elderly (usually wealthy) white folks: they always seem to need someone to subjugate and keep under-heal in order to somehow feel “on top”. WTF up with that?
Wade MacMorrighan
@Paschal: Yes, I don’t doubt we have SOME str8 Allies, but I was waiting for “Stargate Universe” to come on tonight, so killed a half-hour watching “Say yes to the Dress” (trying not to vommit) when I notied how many Gay men were helping all of these Princess-wannabes have *their* Day (as if the Groom is unimportant, or something). Anyway, I could help but be struck by the irony of the situation that a Gay man who is barred from getting married is helping these woman with their “dream wedding” (I wonder if wanting one’s “Dream Wedding” is a psychological disorder?). Not only must that be horribly demoralizing, but I severely doubt that it’s EVER crossed ANY of these women’s minds that the men helping them CANNOT get married, legally. Moreover, I’d also bet you that MOST of them probably would NOT support Marriage Equality, but would vote against it, because two men “simply isn’t marriage” to them–all the while validating Maggie Gallagher to seem exalted in her evil view that she [Mags] is “the one who is standing for the right of American taxpayers not to have a union, same-sex union treated as marriage without their consent” (yes, Mags actually said that on CNN)!
CaliberGuy
@AlwaysGay:
I think that saying that very few heterosexuals want gay people to be on a level playing feel and they always want to have the cards stacked against us is definitely overstating it a bit. How ever I do agree with you on the polls being over stated to the positive side.