Familiarity Does NOT Breed Contempt With GLBT People

The Pew Research Center has released results of a survey where they asked three primary questions:

1) Do you have a close friend or family member who is gay?
2) Should schools be able to fire teachers because they are gay?
3) Should gays be able to marry legally?


You can click on the link to see the detailed results of the survey and form your own conclusions, but there is one critical takeaway for me here. People that know gays are significantly more willing to give them equal protection and equal rights under the law.


One example of that is the answer to the same-sex marriage question. Of those who knew a gay person, 55% responded that they should be able to legally marry. Of those who did not know a gay person, only 25% responded positively.


Now I realize some of that is quite likely due to the fact that some people are so passionately anti-gay that someone who is GLBT, either friend or family member, would be MUCH less likely to reveal it to that person.


Regardless, this survey again shows that it is easier for someone to be against a disembodied group of people having rights, but it is much more difficult to carry that over to a flesh and blood person you know.


This leads me to believe, although I acknowledge it is easy for me to say this in my straigtness, that the more GLBT people who do come out and live lives as positive examples, it really will make an impact on how the GLBT community is accepted in society and eventually lead toward full and equal rights.