An interesting article from the Washington Blade. Apparently there are many in the GLBT community who aren't aware of the laws governing their lives. I find the 2.9% figure very difficult to believe.
Flunking gay rights 101
New survey reveals most of us are clueless about the status of our rights under the law
JOAN GARRY
Friday, May 30, 2008
HUNTER COLLEGE JUST released the results of a comprehensive study, touted by that institution as the most comprehensive study of lesbian, gay and bisexual attitudes and behavior to date.
When the results went public, the headline news was its finding that roughly 2.9 percent of Americans are lesbian, gay or bisexual. Instinctively that number feels low to me (my kids might argue, in the context of that stat, that I know all the gay people in America).
But this is not the finding of most interest to me. And it’s certainly not the most disturbing statistic.
Respondents to the survey who identified as gay were tested on their knowledge regarding the law as it relates to their rights. They were asked four questions. And no, the first one was not “why are you as a person different from all other people?”
Rather than give you the answers, I’ll pose the questions, so you can play along. For each question below, see if you know the answer. And then, for each question, guess what percentage of gay people surveyed answered the question correctly.
Ready? Here goes.
1. Is marriage between two men or two women legal in your state?
2. Can gay men and lesbians serve openly in the military?
3. Does the U.S. Constitution have an amendment that bans same-sex marriage?
4. Is there a national law making it illegal to fire someone for being lesbian, gay or bisexual?
OK, I’ll give you a minute. … Time’s up.
Here are the answers:
1. If you are from California, you should have gotten that one right. Massachusetts is the only other state where U.S. gays can legally marry. A small number of other states offer civil unions and other kinds of relationship recognition. No one gets the federal benefits of marriage and if you move from California or Massachusetts to another state, best of luck to you. They won’t have a clue what to do with your marriage license. See, I told you it was complicated.
2. Gay and lesbian people CANNOT serve openly in the military (even my mother knows that one).
3. There is currently no constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. But if a Republican is inaugurated on 1/20/09, all bets are off.
4. There is no national law protecting a gay person from being fired.
OK, so there are the answers. How did you do?
I sure hope you did better than the gay people surveyed by the gifted Ken Sherrill and his colleagues at Hunter.
Only 38 percent of gay men and lesbians answered all four questions correctly.
Let me say that again in a different way.
Sixty-two percent of the gay people surveyed are clueless about their own rights.
For those of you who think the big challenge of the gay rights movement is to educate straight people about the rights and protections we don’t have, I suggest you think again.
Not that this isn’t a challenge. A straight friend of mine, who assumed she had aced the quiz, answered question four incorrectly. “I really did think that a national law passed a few years ago.”
My straight friend is in good company.
Or should I say, poorly informed company. Forty-one percent of the LGB people surveyed thought that law passed years ago, too.
I struggle to understand how this could possibly be. A college student who reads my blog offered this explanation: “I bet a lot of LGBT students here would flunk the test. I think it’s in part a lamentable side effect of increasing acceptance of LGBT people. They come out early, their parents are OK with it and they therefore think they can live their lives just like everyone else — marriage, suburbs, picket fence, no problem at all. So they know zip about gay rights … and assume everything will be hunky dory.”
Hunter College offers this explanation: “ … Research generally finds that Americans tend to be poorly informed about politics.”
This ain’t politics, folks. It’s about the laws relating to where you work, how you live, who you love. I wouldn’t use the word “politics.” I’d use the word “life.”
The survey was conducted in the midst of one of the most exciting political seasons in which Democratic candidates talked quite a bit about gay people. It is beyond embarrassing to think that Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama seem to know more about our rights (or lack thereof) than we do.
We aren’t paying enough attention.
You can’t fight for what you don’t have if you don’t know you don’t have it.
http://www.washingtonblade.com/2008/5-30/view/editorial/12655.cfm