A couple of interesting polls came out this week that raise some equally interesting questions about conservatism, American values, and American culture and society. One
Gallup poll states that Americans greatly overestimate the percentage of Americans who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.
The American public estimates on average that 23% of Americans are gay or lesbian, little changed from Americans' 25% estimate in 2011, and only slightly higher than separate 2002 estimates of the gay and lesbian population. These estimates are many times higher than the 3.8% of the adult population who identified themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender in Gallup Daily tracking in the first four months of this year.
The stability of these estimates over time contrasts with the major shifts in Americans' attitudes about the morality and legality of gay and lesbian relations in the past two decades. Whereas 38% of Americans said gay and lesbian relations were morally acceptable in 2002, that number has risen to 63% today. And while 35% of Americans favored legalized same-sex marriage in 1999, 60% favor it today.
It might come as a surprise that only 3.8% of the American population identify as LGBT. It did to me. We are inundated with news stories and manufactured outrage from the left to such a degree that it really seemed that we were transforming our laws,
interpretation of our Constitution, and
our religious beliefs for a significant portion of the population. But no.
Not that the tiny percentage makes any real difference in our own beliefs about states' rights, gay "marriage," and the assault on Judeo-Christian values, but the difference between our perception and reality speaks volumes about the effectiveness of the progressive far left.
They are so effective at both creating false impressions and pushing their ideology, in fact, that the results are measurable.
According to another Gallup poll, the number of people identifying their social values as liberal matches those who identify their social values as conservative for the first time.