I think it's just a short-term dip. Look at the trend graphs further down the page (specifically "Americans' Views of the Morality of Same-Sex Relations, 2001-2023"). There were downward dips in...
I think it's just a short-term dip. Look at the trend graphs further down the page (specifically "Americans' Views of the Morality of Same-Sex Relations, 2001-2023"). There were downward dips in 2019, 2016, and 2012, but the overall trend across the past two decades has been toward more acceptance.
It's nice that you're so optimistic but even when you don't break it down by party the dip looks fairly large compared to the past. When you do break it down by party you see the dip is huge for...
It's nice that you're so optimistic but even when you don't break it down by party the dip looks fairly large compared to the past. When you do break it down by party you see the dip is huge for republicans. Sadly, I don't think it's statistical noise. The anti-LGBT propaganda machine is real and out in full force, and it's important to realize that it's effects are real.
There has been similar "noise" in previous years. Even after a 7-point dip from 2022 to 2023, this result is still the highest result in the past 6 years, and higher than the previous low-point 4...
There has been similar "noise" in previous years.
Even after a 7-point dip from 2022 to 2023, this result is still the highest result in the past 6 years, and higher than the previous low-point 4 years ago in 2019.
Even if you're going to focus on Republicans, their 41% acceptance of same-sex relations in 2023 is still higher than it was a decade ago (37% in 2013) and significantly higher than it was two decades ago (30% in 2003).
Even when acceptance of LGBT+ people falls, it falls from a higher base than it did in the past, and falls to a higher level than it did in the past. The overall trend is still upward. The Overton Window for same-sex relations is shifting toward more acceptance, so fluctuations of lower acceptance have to remain within that range of overall higher acceptance.
I'm not saying Americans should be totally complacent, and just assume this problem will go away by itself. But, on the other hand, this isn't automatically the beginning of the end times for gay people everywhere.
It should be noted that Trump, the darling of the right and far right, claimed to be super pro-LGBT. Whether or not he really is, is beside the point. There used to be a time when saying that...
It should be noted that Trump, the darling of the right and far right, claimed to be super pro-LGBT. Whether or not he really is, is beside the point.
There used to be a time when saying that would’ve been a political death sentence. Things have clearly massively changed.
an important caveat to keep in mind about the US is that the actions of our government have only a very tenuous connection to public opinion. for example, from last month that was a 6-3 decision,...
I'm not saying Americans should be totally complacent, and just assume this problem will go away by itself. But, on the other hand, this isn't automatically the beginning of the end times for gay people everywhere.
an important caveat to keep in mind about the US is that the actions of our government have only a very tenuous connection to public opinion.
In a defeat for gay rights, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled on Friday that a Christian graphic artist who wants to design wedding websites can refuse to work with same-sex couples. One of the court’s liberal justices wrote in a dissent that the decision’s effect is to “mark gays and lesbians for second-class status” and that the decision opens the door to other discrimination.
that was a 6-3 decision, and of the 6 conservative justices, 5 of them were appointed by a President who lost the popular vote (2 by George W Bush and 3 by Trump). it basically doesn't matter what the population of the US thinks, it only matters what those 6 conservatives (the youngest of whom is 51) think.
and meanwhile in our legislature - even in cases where Democrats have the Presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress (as they did from Jan 2021 - Jan 2023) passing any non-budget legislation requires a 60% supermajority in the Senate. our legislature...basically doesn't legislate anymore. the likelihood of passing something like a 21st century version of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that would ensure legal protections for LGBTQ people is zero.
so it's entirely possible for two things to be true simultaneously - overall public opinion in the US is gradually becoming more accepting of LGBTQ people, but at the same time, government-endorsed discrimination is becoming worse, and in many cases significantly worse (such as the "bathroom bill" in Florida that effectively criminalizes the existence of trans people in public spaces)
So basically every time media speculation about the presidential primaries starts ramping up. It's also worth noting that we're talking about a 7 point shift from the previous year on a poll with...
So basically every time media speculation about the presidential primaries starts ramping up.
It's also worth noting that we're talking about a 7 point shift from the previous year on a poll with an 8 point margin of error.
That seemed extreme, so I dug deeper by downloading the PDF at the bottom of the page. So, you're correct, but I'm used to seeing the error margin expressed as a plus/minus deviation from the...
on a poll with an 8 point margin of error.
That seemed extreme, so I dug deeper by downloading the PDF at the bottom of the page.
Results are based on telephone interviews conducted May 1-24, 2023, with a random sample of –1,011—adults, ages 18+, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on this sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
So, you're correct, but I'm used to seeing the error margin expressed as a plus/minus deviation from the reported value, rather than as a full range of possible values.
This allows us to say that the result is that 64±4% of people accept same-sex relations, or somewhere between 60% and 68% (which is the 8% range you refer to).
I checked, and last year's survey had the same ±4 percentage points margin of error, meaning that 71±4% of people accepted same-sex relations in 2022, or somewhere between 67% and 75% (again, an 8% range).
2023: 60 - 68% acceptance of same-sex relations
2022: 67 - 75% acceptance of same-sex relations
This means that it's theoretically possible that there's been no change at all in Americans' attitude to same-sex relations! In reality, there probably has been some shift in attitudes, but we don't know for sure how much or whether it's a new trend.
We're in the territory of manufactured moral panics here. All that was needed was to attach the label "pedophile", and anything associated with that word is automatically radioactive. Like...
We're in the territory of manufactured moral panics here. All that was needed was to attach the label "pedophile", and anything associated with that word is automatically radioactive. Like Russians calling Ukrainians "Nazis", "pedophile" has become an all-purpose epithet that automatically dehumanizes anyone it can be stuck to.
Trans people, gay people, Democrats - they're all the same hated groups once "pedophile" is even mentioned, let alone once the conspiracy peddlers have had their say. It's a very intentional propaganda technique.
And it doesn't matter if the revulsion is rational or not, it just needs to last long enough to tilt the election, as we saw with the U.S. Ebola contagion scare and immigration in 2014.
Probably both. Before Obergefell, gay jokes were common and most of society seemed to think of trans people and tranny freaks, then overnight everyone had always supported gay people and suddenly...
Probably both. Before Obergefell, gay jokes were common and most of society seemed to think of trans people and tranny freaks, then overnight everyone had always supported gay people and suddenly everyone had outspoken opinions on trans people one way or the other.
There's no way that such a huge change in such a short time wasn't largely due to people just trying to fit in.
Absolutely. They basically lost the war on mistreating gay people, so they refocused it to trans. They had success with trans, but really, it was the same thing to them the whole time. They...
Absolutely. They basically lost the war on mistreating gay people, so they refocused it to trans. They had success with trans, but really, it was the same thing to them the whole time. They basically equate any lgbt person the same, as morally corrupt deviants, and the fact they were able to openly criticize and legislate against trans people, to them, basically meant it was ok to hate gays again, which was also unfortunately reinforced by the current supreme court. Don't want to interfere with their religious right to persecute people! That's a long held tradition!
I think we should wait a bit before screaming "the sky is falling!" So far, this is a one-off dip at the end of a long-term trend of increasing acceptance of same-sex relations (look at the trend...
I think we should wait a bit before screaming "the sky is falling!"
So far, this is a one-off dip at the end of a long-term trend of increasing acceptance of same-sex relations (look at the trend graphs in the middle of the article). There have been downward dips in previous years (e.g. 2019, 2016, 2012), followed by upward moves in subsequent years, so that the overall trend across the past two decades is toward more acceptance. Let's wait and see what next year's result is, and see if people are actually less accepting of homosexuality, or whether it was just a blip in the trend.
I don't love the framing of this as "the sky is falling" given the current political landscape in the US. Perhaps it is indeed a temporary blip, but it's combine with some incredibly harmful...
I don't love the framing of this as "the sky is falling" given the current political landscape in the US. Perhaps it is indeed a temporary blip, but it's combine with some incredibly harmful legislation and outright dangerous rhetoric that has entered the mainstream.
If the sky isn't falling, something big is still falling and hitting us.
As a gay man with a bunch of trans friends I'm in this camp. Between the attack on reproductive rights, drag shows, increases in right-wing domestic terrorism events, legal precedents being set...
Exemplary
As a gay man with a bunch of trans friends I'm in this camp. Between the attack on reproductive rights, drag shows, increases in right-wing domestic terrorism events, legal precedents being set legalizing discrimination against LGBTQ+ members of society, the constant attacks on anything "woke", the permeation of this rhetoric within the (former) Presidency/Congress, the progression of the Dominionist/Joshua Generation (evangelical hardliners) infiltration of society at all levels...look I do this semi-professionally (activist and organizer here) I could list shit all day long.
The long and short of it, isn't that the sky is falling it's that it already fell. A fascist takeover doesn't require the majority of the population to agree, they just need them to be complacent.
I'm reminded of two things in this instance. MLK Jr's Letter from a Birmingham Jail (specifically the [white] moderate being the biggest stumbling block and the paternalistic dictation of another's timetable of freedom) and the other is Magnus Hirschfeld's Institut für Sexualwissenschaft. One of the first things that the Nazi's really came for happened on the day of May 6, 1933 in which they raided the Institute and angry young men burned the records/studies/entirety of the library over the next few days all of which were perfectly legal due to the Nazis taking advantage of their manipulations of the legal system making their actions legal undertakings, just as we're beginning to see here in the US with the legal withholding of healthcare resulting in direct harm to people.
If you happen to be LGBTQ+, a woman, a person of color in almost 25 states now your life is actively at risk as well as you have a host of predictable life shortening consequences all the way from maternal mortality rates being in the shitter to LGBTQ teen suicide rates being sky high.
So I repeat again, the sky isn't falling - it fell ages ago and we're trying to hold this shit up so maybe another person doesn't end up dead again tomorrow.
This is probably my favorite piece of American political writing. To quote the part you mention: Full letter here: https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
This is probably my favorite piece of American political writing. To quote the part you mention:
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
That is an incredibly poignant way to put it. I live in a state that protects abortion rights, trans rights, and has pushed back against the local school boards that have banned books and targeted...
That is an incredibly poignant way to put it. I live in a state that protects abortion rights, trans rights, and has pushed back against the local school boards that have banned books and targeted teachers but I'm still not super comfortable leaving the state right now as a queer non-binary woman. I'm privileged in many ways, but desperately anxious about my trans students. Hell we have racist parents still not wanting their white student to live with black students. (My coworker got that call this week and was livid).
It feels like the entire system is being held up with duct tape and string and while I don't love the system, it falling apart doesn't feel safer for the people most at risk either.
If nothing else, there's a lot of us trying to shoulder the sky on our backs. It feels worth continuing to try.
Maybe I'm a bit complacent over here, in my non-USA liberal democracy. Maybe things over there are worse than they look from a distance. Sorry if I seemed too flippant. But I'm also aware that...
Maybe I'm a bit complacent over here, in my non-USA liberal democracy. Maybe things over there are worse than they look from a distance. Sorry if I seemed too flippant.
But I'm also aware that governments can pass laws even when the majority of the populace don't agree with those laws. Government policies don't always reflect popular opinion - especially in a country which is renowned for gerrymandering and other unfair electoral practices. It's ironic that a country that calls itself the leader of the free world and an upholder of democracy is not actually as democratic as it could be. So, I know that, while governments across the USA make anti-transgender and anti-gay laws, that doesn't necessarily reflect what the broader American population might believe.
The American right is strangely, and perhaps uniquely, animated by fear and othering of LGBT (and especially trans) people for the past few years. This has resulted in a whole zoo of anti-trans...
Maybe I'm a bit complacent over here, in my non-USA liberal democracy. Maybe things over there are worse than they look from a distance. Sorry if I seemed too flippant.
So, I know that, while governments across the USA make anti-transgender and anti-gay laws, that doesn't necessarily reflect what the broader American population might believe.
The American right is strangely, and perhaps uniquely, animated by fear and othering of LGBT (and especially trans) people for the past few years. This has resulted in a whole zoo of anti-trans bills in various US states which is a phenomenon not unlike the big push to make anti-gay marriage laws in the mid-2000s. On one hand, this is a reactionary response to growing acceptance. They feel the cultural conscious moving against them, so they lash out with their political power. On the other hand, positive progress is never a given, and this may indicate a real backslide or erosion in public support.
So, I know that, while governments across the USA make anti-transgender and anti-gay laws, that doesn't necessarily reflect what the broader American population might believe.
Overall, these types of laws are incredibly popular among conservatives which is why right-wing media in the country has gone full tilt in promoting these bigoted laws. Unlike other eras of US conservative politics, it is very much led by populist sentiment rather than the agenda being set by trusted leaders.
We have our own right-wing anti-LGBT people here in Australia, too. Such as the right-wing Prime Minister who went out of his way to re-write our Marriage Act in 2004, so that it specifically said...
We have our own right-wing anti-LGBT people here in Australia, too. Such as the right-wing Prime Minister who went out of his way to re-write our Marriage Act in 2004, so that it specifically said "marriage is between one man and one woman". Even today, two decades later, there are anti-gay and anti-transgender people around. There was a fuss recently about a female state politician attending an anti-trans rally, which was then gate-crashed by neo-Nazis. And some local councils have cancelled Drag Story Time events after receiving threats of violence against the events and against the hosts. And so on.
So, we're not immune to prejudice here in Australia. Some people, as you say, are responding to what they see as the culture moving against them, and them losing power or prestige.
However... these anti-LGBT voices in Australia are definitely seen as a lunatic fringe, rather than representative of the mainstream, or even a significant minority. They're outliers, and all mainstream politicians reject that message of hate and violence, even if some mainstream politicians might agree slightly with their underlying concerns.
I have lived a significant portion of my life in both the US and Australia (I am originally from the US and immigrated to Australia 11 years ago). They are very similar cultures in many ways, much...
Exemplary
I have lived a significant portion of my life in both the US and Australia (I am originally from the US and immigrated to Australia 11 years ago). They are very similar cultures in many ways, much closer than you'd normally expect between two separate countries. However, there are a couple differences that make me very worried for my friends and family in the US in a way that I do not worry for my friends in Australia:
One, the voting system in Australia is just plain better in almost every way (there is one glaring exception I can think of—people can campaign to voters waiting in line—but it ends of being fairly minor on net, although I do think Australia would be greatly improved by legislating harshly against this). Legislators do still write unpopular laws, but it's far more rare, and those laws often do not persist very long. On the whole, the government is much more concerned with what the population as a whole desires because the population as a whole actually votes, and they vote in a system (ranked choice) designed to make it far easier for voters to eject elected officials from their seats. Australian career politicians are keenly aware that their constituents could very well cut their careers short, in a way that American politicians are far less concerned.
Two, the Australian population (taken as a whole; obviously individuals vary) is more mature, rational, and cohesive. It's hard to say why this is. It's certainly not (as some people on the right might try to argue) because the US has a more multicultural population, because that is not the case (Australia has a substantially larger immigrant population by percentage, one of the very highest in the world, yet it is also one of the most politically stable countries in the world). One might argue it's because Australia has a smaller population; however, many of the most politically divisive and war-torn countries in the world are quite small, so I'm not convinced that that is actually an important factor. I personally suspect it comes down partially to culture/history (the US was severely divided on the question of slavery, and those two positions have spawned their own distinct cultural identities), but also comes down to the less equal distribution of resources in the US. You see a far bigger divide between the poor and the wealthy, and even people in the middle are one serious illness away from homelessness. I think this inequality and constant anxiety in the US creates a general culture of paranoia, isolation, and rivalry.
These are some of the biggest differences I've personally observed along these lines:
The Australian middle class takes more vacations, wears nicer clothes, drives nicer cars, eats out at more restaurants, and does more recreational shopping (malls and flea markets are absolutely booming here, while they are gradually disappearing in the US). People live more freely and fearlessly when they aren't worried that a serious car accident will derail their and their family's lives.
In Melbourne, which is a quite progressive city, I have might quite a few people who like Trump; in the US, where my family and friends almost all live in the Bible Belt (including rural Appalachian Tennessee), I literally don't know a single person who likes Trump, even though I know several Republican voters (who lately just don't vote at all). Obviously Trump supports must exist, and in abundance, but Americans live in cultural bubbles that make it much more likely that you have no personal interaction with people who strongly disagree with you. In Australia, people of different political persuasions actually intermingle.
When I've observed Australians having a major political disagreement, it may get heated and they may get very angry at each other, but they do at least try to change each other's minds; that, or they agree to disagree, and otherwise go on living as they were. When I've observed Americans having a major political disagreement, it tends to rip their social circle apart in a way that is never, ever repaired; grudges persist for years and years, and onlookers are expected to stridently take a side or be viewed with great suspicion by both sides. I have seen my old social circles in the US undergo many such divisions in the last 11 years, whereas none of my social circles in Australia have.
Australians change the parties they vote for. Many times, I've heard Australians say idly, "I don't think I'll vote for [X Party] again this year. I don't like the way they handled [Y]". Even between the two biggest rivals, Labor and Liberal, voters often switch between one and the other from year to year. This is not what's it's like in the US. The party you vote for is a part of your identity: you are a Democrat voter or a Republican voter, even if you hold your nose while you vote, and it would be very strange for someone to waver between the two. Elections are not won by luring voters away from the other party; they're won by invigorating your base to get their butts to the booth and by making it harder for the other party to do the same with their base. Thus the political system actively reinforces and grows the existing cultural division, which likely would have faded after the Civil War had the US employed a more hands-off Australian-style voting system where everyone's butt is in the booth no matter what.
Perhaps this is the case in Australia, but it doesn't reflect the status quo in Europe, at least on trans rights. The UK in particular is probably even worse than the US in this regard -- while...
They're outliers, and all mainstream politicians reject that message of hate and violence, even if some mainstream politicians might agree slightly with their underlying concerns.
Perhaps this is the case in Australia, but it doesn't reflect the status quo in Europe, at least on trans rights. The UK in particular is probably even worse than the US in this regard -- while it's a partisan issue in the US, there are virulent transphobes in both major parties and some minor ones (even those on the left) in the UK. While I think the influence of vocal transphobes on politics in the rest of Western Europe isn't as bad as in the UK (it's a low bar to clear), the vocal minority of transphobes is absolutely influential enough that mainstream politicians, especially those right of European center, do listen to them and back their "reasonable concerns" in parliament.
These issues become a lot more visible when you yourself are trans and following the politics around legislation in your particular country. So for non-trans people or people from elsewhere, the political backlash to our existence in a given country ends up being a lot less visible.
I appreciate the reconsideration. Trust that I'm not a believer in American exceptionalism, and thus don't find it ironic anymore that the US does what it does, but though the government may pass...
I appreciate the reconsideration. Trust that I'm not a believer in American exceptionalism, and thus don't find it ironic anymore that the US does what it does, but though the government may pass unpopular laws targeting abortion or LGBTQ folks, what I find is a large number of people who "think it goes too far" still won't vote any different because it doesn't impact them directly. (Or they think it won't ). The polling changes don't necessarily reflect a long term trend, but combined with the recent pushes to ban books in schools at all levels of the government and small local governments being taken over by people accusing queer teachers of being sexual predators, it's concerning.
As I said, the sky may not be falling, but something is trying to land on us very hard right now.
(And while your country may not be targeting queer folks now, the rhetoric isn't limited to the US, nor is any country seemingly immune to scapegoating of an unpopular sub-group. )
This is hardly surprising - the right-wing hate media has been waging an all-out war to monsterize the LGBTQ+ community w/ virtually no mainstream pushback (if anything "liberal" outlets like the...
This is hardly surprising - the right-wing hate media has been waging an all-out war to monsterize the LGBTQ+ community w/ virtually no mainstream pushback (if anything "liberal" outlets like the NYT and NPR have been supportive, like they are with all wars), and as much as Americans are loathe to admit it, propaganda works.
Truly the NYT has decided to be fully on the side of the anti-trans voice. And I'm aware that this isn the only area where there's obvious bias in their reporting but it's just so glaring in its...
Truly the NYT has decided to be fully on the side of the anti-trans voice. And I'm aware that this isn the only area where there's obvious bias in their reporting but it's just so glaring in its "concern" for trans kids with zero or near-zero interaction with actual trans kids/teens/adults who transitioned as kids and medical professionals in favor of "whistleblowers" who were lying/violating patient private and parents who are opposed to their kid's transition.
It'd be nice to hear about trans joy (and queer joy) anywhere near so often
I actually listened to a podcast that interviewed the current publisher of the NYT where he was asked specifically about their trans issues coverage. His response was something along the lines of...
I actually listened to a podcast that interviewed the current publisher of the NYT where he was asked specifically about their trans issues coverage. His response was something along the lines of "we're pro-trans but we owe it to our readership to cover the very real debate about the impact of transitioning among children happening in the medical community".
I can understand that position, and in a vacuum it's perfectly reasonable. But we don't live in a vacuum, we live in a society, and their coverage is responsible for some network effects that they need to take into consideration. Their coverage is directly responsible for making life measurably worse for trans people, especially trans youth. They give ammunition to people who want to harm them, who will say "this is from an ultraliberal paper so it must be true!" It lets people in power punch down to people who do not have power. The fact that he doesn't see that is a tragedy.
that's just straight-up misinformation, though. there isn't a "very real debate" on this issue happening within the medical community (to be clear, talking about evidence-based medicine, not some...
the very real debate about the impact of transitioning among children happening in the medical community
that's just straight-up misinformation, though. there isn't a "very real debate" on this issue happening within the medical community (to be clear, talking about evidence-based medicine, not some woo pseudoscience). the claims from these right wing monsters over how gender affirmation for children is approached by their doctors are almost always lies. it's incredibly concerning that the top brass at the NYT is pushing this narrative, albeit indirectly. they're giving air time and consideration to people and ideas the medical community actively denounce, then framing it as "reasonable debate"
Please keep in mind that it wasn't a quote; I'd encourage you to listen to or read the transcript of the interview to get the full picture. I linked it in an earlier reply.
Please keep in mind that it wasn't a quote; I'd encourage you to listen to or read the transcript of the interview to get the full picture. I linked it in an earlier reply.
Reading the transcript now, and it's actually worse than you've described :( especially considering those statements immediately followed him saying they wouldn't provide a platform for...
Reading the transcript now, and it's actually worse than you've described :( especially considering those statements immediately followed him saying they wouldn't provide a platform for misinformation.
I just think it's a cop out when they would also "owe their readers" the "pro trans" aka what medical professionals actually recommend side of the story too. And to debunk the anti-trans arguments...
I just think it's a cop out when they would also "owe their readers" the "pro trans" aka what medical professionals actually recommend side of the story too. And to debunk the anti-trans arguments that are based in bad science. But I'm not seeing that happening just a lot of "but what if it's actually bad? It could be! Who could say?"
It's disingenuous. At best it's naive, which is not something I associate with major newspaper publishers. Granting as much grace as possible they're failing at their job.
I really don't think he's acting in bad faith at all. It all meshes in with his overarching beliefs. If you want to understand what he was saying, here's the podcast I was listening to, complete...
I really don't think he's acting in bad faith at all. It all meshes in with his overarching beliefs. If you want to understand what he was saying, here's the podcast I was listening to, complete with transcript if you don't want to spend the time listening to it. I'd like to quote the section, but it's a bit too much to fit in the context of a comment.
I would love to change his mind on his coverage of trans issues, but he's got a fairly consistent worldview so I don't see it being an easy task.
I did read through it. I just find it contradictory when contrasted with his rhetorical question up top: It comes across as the typical "just asking questions" but it is incredibly frustrating to...
I did read through it. I just find it contradictory when contrasted with his rhetorical question up top:
Or should the role of journalists be to independently follow the truth and try to arm the public with the facts and the context and the understanding it needs for this giant, diverse democracy to come together and self-govern?
It comes across as the typical "just asking questions" but it is incredibly frustrating to watch only those questions being asked and truly only of the "skeptics". It's the equivalent of covering flat-earthers, multiple times, and in such a way that NASA and everyone who relies on the round earth , to be finding their articles used as evidence against them and having trouble living their day to day lives as a result.
I'm not asking him to pretend there isn't a debate, but to stop framing the "concern" as the only valid viewpoint and to stop treating the debate of "random whistleblower and conservative mom" vs "Every major medical and mental health organization's best practices" as two equal sides.
I just think it falls very flat while literally admitting to having to run corrections. I have plenty of issues with the NYT. But I think there's a sort of "this is all theoretical" vibe when it so very clearly isn't. And the people who are writing these stories go on Twitter and argue not that the controversy should be covered, but that they were right to be "concerned" and shouldn't be criticized for their own errors.
I know "doctors say things are, generally, fine" isn't a headline. I'm not naive enough to think that there's actual care about the impact either. I just think he's failing at his stated mission. And I think as long as it's essentially an academic issue to him (as long as any of these topics are academic issues to publishers) then it won't change his mind regardless.
Yeah I hear you -- I was a pretty dedicated NPR listener/supporter in the 90s, then during the Clinton impeachment fiasco had to really do a hard double-take listening to them adopt every single...
Yeah I hear you -- I was a pretty dedicated NPR listener/supporter in the 90s, then during the Clinton impeachment fiasco had to really do a hard double-take listening to them adopt every single fucking one of the GOP talking points and push them as if they weren't nonsense. Their reprehensible behavior leading up to and during the Iraq invasion finally broke me though, and I haven't listened to them since.
They're hard to find on the airwaves, but I would recommend checking out Democracy Now! and Thom Hartmann's show; also Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has a weekly show Counterspin that's worth tracking down.
I'd mentioned a systematic propaganda effort to label LGBTQ+ people as pedophiles above. Here's an egregious example of how impossible it is to even refute the accusation.
I'd mentioned a systematic propaganda effort to label LGBTQ+ people as pedophiles above.
Here's an egregious example of how impossible it is to even refute the accusation.
I'll believe this when it has some demographics with real numbers to go with it. Enough change of those will skew results like this. How many are old? How many are republican? How many are heavily...
I'll believe this when it has some demographics with real numbers to go with it. Enough change of those will skew results like this.
How many are old? How many are republican? How many are heavily religious? All these people I bet are more likely to take a phone survey. Most Americans don't even answer their phone when random people call and that alone is greatly skewing results as only a certain type of person is taking the surveys.
The article discusses party affiliation explicitly, but as far as age, religion, and number of respondents goes -- in the polling business, these are called "cross tabs" and are conveniently...
Exemplary
How many are old? How many are republican? How many are heavily religious?
The article discusses party affiliation explicitly, but as far as age, religion, and number of respondents goes -- in the polling business, these are called "cross tabs" and are conveniently located in the end of the article: https://news.gallup.com/file/poll/507239/230619MoralIssues.pdf
The first page explains their methodology, which I can quote partially here:
Results are based on telephone interviews conducted May 1-24, 2023, with a random sample of –1,011—adults, ages 18+, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on this sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 75% cell phone respondents and 25% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cell phone telephone numbers are selected using random digit dial methods. Gallup obtained sample for this study from Dynata. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member has the next birthday.
Samples are weighted to correct for unequal selection probability, non-response, and double coverage of landline and cell users in the two sampling frames. They are also weighted to match the national demographics of gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, population density, and phone status (cell phone?only/landline only/both and cell phone mostly). Demographic weighting targets are based on the most recentCurrent Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older U.S. population. Phone status targets are based on the most recent National Health Interview Survey. Population density targets are based on the 2020 census. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting.
As @Algernon_Asimov stated, Gallup is a well-respected pollster with a long track record. If you're curious, here's how fivethirtyeight ranks Gallup in terms of political elections accuracy (which is a different kind of polling than done here). I apologize if what I'm about to say comes across as rude, but like, if we were discussing dictionaries and somebody started saying "well who are these Merriam-Webster people anyway?" they'd come across as a little silly.
if we were discussing dictionaries and somebody started saying "well who are these Merriam-Webster people anyway?" they'd come across as a little silly.
It's Gallup, a reputable poll-taking organisation. They study how to make good polls, and they know how to ensure a survey is demographically representative.
It's Gallup, a reputable poll-taking organisation. They study how to make good polls, and they know how to ensure a survey is demographically representative.
Sorry, I don't believe people just because they claim to be awesome or just because they're trusted. They're leaving out all the people smart enough not to pickup their phone for strangers. How...
Sorry, I don't believe people just because they claim to be awesome or just because they're trusted. They're leaving out all the people smart enough not to pickup their phone for strangers. How can that be good polling?
Phones aside, I'd like to know how we regressed 4 years since 2022 and pointing fingers at conservatives/republicans isn't an explanation. This means a lot of people would have to totally change their views on what's morally right and wrong. People don't just do that for no reason and I can't think of anything big enough to do that, so what changed that was bigger than past events?
Gallup has thought of this. They are experts in the field. I'm not saying that their methodology is untouchable, but "people don't answer the phone as much anymore" would not be a surprise to...
They're leaving out all the people smart enough not to pickup their phone for strangers. How can that be good polling?
Gallup has thought of this. They are experts in the field. I'm not saying that their methodology is untouchable, but "people don't answer the phone as much anymore" would not be a surprise to them.
They have a methodology blog if you would like to learn more.
You're right: that's not an explanation. Or, at least, not the whole explanation. It's worth pointing out that the level of acceptance of same-sex relations: Has dropped in individual years...
I'd like to know how we regressed 4 years since 2022 and pointing fingers at conservatives/republicans isn't an explanation.
You're right: that's not an explanation. Or, at least, not the whole explanation.
It's worth pointing out that the level of acceptance of same-sex relations:
Has dropped in individual years previously (look at 2019, 2016, and 2012).
Has continued its overall upward trend over the past two decades, despite occasional single-year drops.
But, even against that background, there's been a lot of statements and protests and legislation against transgender people and gay people in the USA over the past couple of years. This is obviously having some effect on public opinion there.
These two causes - statistical noise and current protests - probably explain the recent drop in acceptance of same-sex relations.
Makes me wonder if people had just gotten bullied into accepting gay people and now feel like they can truly be their authentic bigoted selves.
I think it's just a short-term dip. Look at the trend graphs further down the page (specifically "Americans' Views of the Morality of Same-Sex Relations, 2001-2023"). There were downward dips in 2019, 2016, and 2012, but the overall trend across the past two decades has been toward more acceptance.
It's nice that you're so optimistic but even when you don't break it down by party the dip looks fairly large compared to the past. When you do break it down by party you see the dip is huge for republicans. Sadly, I don't think it's statistical noise. The anti-LGBT propaganda machine is real and out in full force, and it's important to realize that it's effects are real.
There has been similar "noise" in previous years.
Even after a 7-point dip from 2022 to 2023, this result is still the highest result in the past 6 years, and higher than the previous low-point 4 years ago in 2019.
Even if you're going to focus on Republicans, their 41% acceptance of same-sex relations in 2023 is still higher than it was a decade ago (37% in 2013) and significantly higher than it was two decades ago (30% in 2003).
Even when acceptance of LGBT+ people falls, it falls from a higher base than it did in the past, and falls to a higher level than it did in the past. The overall trend is still upward. The Overton Window for same-sex relations is shifting toward more acceptance, so fluctuations of lower acceptance have to remain within that range of overall higher acceptance.
I'm not saying Americans should be totally complacent, and just assume this problem will go away by itself. But, on the other hand, this isn't automatically the beginning of the end times for gay people everywhere.
Thanks for this explanation, it makes the trend feel a bit less bleak.
It should be noted that Trump, the darling of the right and far right, claimed to be super pro-LGBT. Whether or not he really is, is beside the point.
There used to be a time when saying that would’ve been a political death sentence. Things have clearly massively changed.
an important caveat to keep in mind about the US is that the actions of our government have only a very tenuous connection to public opinion.
for example, from last month
that was a 6-3 decision, and of the 6 conservative justices, 5 of them were appointed by a President who lost the popular vote (2 by George W Bush and 3 by Trump). it basically doesn't matter what the population of the US thinks, it only matters what those 6 conservatives (the youngest of whom is 51) think.
and meanwhile in our legislature - even in cases where Democrats have the Presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress (as they did from Jan 2021 - Jan 2023) passing any non-budget legislation requires a 60% supermajority in the Senate. our legislature...basically doesn't legislate anymore. the likelihood of passing something like a 21st century version of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that would ensure legal protections for LGBTQ people is zero.
so it's entirely possible for two things to be true simultaneously - overall public opinion in the US is gradually becoming more accepting of LGBTQ people, but at the same time, government-endorsed discrimination is becoming worse, and in many cases significantly worse (such as the "bathroom bill" in Florida that effectively criminalizes the existence of trans people in public spaces)
So basically every time media speculation about the presidential primaries starts ramping up.
It's also worth noting that we're talking about a 7 point shift from the previous year on a poll with an 8 point margin of error.
That seemed extreme, so I dug deeper by downloading the PDF at the bottom of the page.
So, you're correct, but I'm used to seeing the error margin expressed as a plus/minus deviation from the reported value, rather than as a full range of possible values.
This allows us to say that the result is that 64±4% of people accept same-sex relations, or somewhere between 60% and 68% (which is the 8% range you refer to).
I checked, and last year's survey had the same ±4 percentage points margin of error, meaning that 71±4% of people accepted same-sex relations in 2022, or somewhere between 67% and 75% (again, an 8% range).
2023: 60 - 68% acceptance of same-sex relations
2022: 67 - 75% acceptance of same-sex relations
This means that it's theoretically possible that there's been no change at all in Americans' attitude to same-sex relations! In reality, there probably has been some shift in attitudes, but we don't know for sure how much or whether it's a new trend.
We're in the territory of manufactured moral panics here. All that was needed was to attach the label "pedophile", and anything associated with that word is automatically radioactive. Like Russians calling Ukrainians "Nazis", "pedophile" has become an all-purpose epithet that automatically dehumanizes anyone it can be stuck to.
Trans people, gay people, Democrats - they're all the same hated groups once "pedophile" is even mentioned, let alone once the conspiracy peddlers have had their say. It's a very intentional propaganda technique.
And it doesn't matter if the revulsion is rational or not, it just needs to last long enough to tilt the election, as we saw with the U.S. Ebola contagion scare and immigration in 2014.
Or maybe people really do buy in to the media generated outrage and Facebook bots
Probably both. Before Obergefell, gay jokes were common and most of society seemed to think of trans people and tranny freaks, then overnight everyone had always supported gay people and suddenly everyone had outspoken opinions on trans people one way or the other.
There's no way that such a huge change in such a short time wasn't largely due to people just trying to fit in.
Absolutely. They basically lost the war on mistreating gay people, so they refocused it to trans. They had success with trans, but really, it was the same thing to them the whole time. They basically equate any lgbt person the same, as morally corrupt deviants, and the fact they were able to openly criticize and legislate against trans people, to them, basically meant it was ok to hate gays again, which was also unfortunately reinforced by the current supreme court. Don't want to interfere with their religious right to persecute people! That's a long held tradition!
I think we should wait a bit before screaming "the sky is falling!"
So far, this is a one-off dip at the end of a long-term trend of increasing acceptance of same-sex relations (look at the trend graphs in the middle of the article). There have been downward dips in previous years (e.g. 2019, 2016, 2012), followed by upward moves in subsequent years, so that the overall trend across the past two decades is toward more acceptance. Let's wait and see what next year's result is, and see if people are actually less accepting of homosexuality, or whether it was just a blip in the trend.
I don't love the framing of this as "the sky is falling" given the current political landscape in the US. Perhaps it is indeed a temporary blip, but it's combine with some incredibly harmful legislation and outright dangerous rhetoric that has entered the mainstream.
If the sky isn't falling, something big is still falling and hitting us.
As a gay man with a bunch of trans friends I'm in this camp. Between the attack on reproductive rights, drag shows, increases in right-wing domestic terrorism events, legal precedents being set legalizing discrimination against LGBTQ+ members of society, the constant attacks on anything "woke", the permeation of this rhetoric within the (former) Presidency/Congress, the progression of the Dominionist/Joshua Generation (evangelical hardliners) infiltration of society at all levels...look I do this semi-professionally (activist and organizer here) I could list shit all day long.
The long and short of it, isn't that the sky is falling it's that it already fell. A fascist takeover doesn't require the majority of the population to agree, they just need them to be complacent.
I'm reminded of two things in this instance. MLK Jr's Letter from a Birmingham Jail (specifically the [white] moderate being the biggest stumbling block and the paternalistic dictation of another's timetable of freedom) and the other is Magnus Hirschfeld's Institut für Sexualwissenschaft. One of the first things that the Nazi's really came for happened on the day of May 6, 1933 in which they raided the Institute and angry young men burned the records/studies/entirety of the library over the next few days all of which were perfectly legal due to the Nazis taking advantage of their manipulations of the legal system making their actions legal undertakings, just as we're beginning to see here in the US with the legal withholding of healthcare resulting in direct harm to people.
If you happen to be LGBTQ+, a woman, a person of color in almost 25 states now your life is actively at risk as well as you have a host of predictable life shortening consequences all the way from maternal mortality rates being in the shitter to LGBTQ teen suicide rates being sky high.
So I repeat again, the sky isn't falling - it fell ages ago and we're trying to hold this shit up so maybe another person doesn't end up dead again tomorrow.
This is probably my favorite piece of American political writing. To quote the part you mention:
Full letter here: https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
That is an incredibly poignant way to put it. I live in a state that protects abortion rights, trans rights, and has pushed back against the local school boards that have banned books and targeted teachers but I'm still not super comfortable leaving the state right now as a queer non-binary woman. I'm privileged in many ways, but desperately anxious about my trans students. Hell we have racist parents still not wanting their white student to live with black students. (My coworker got that call this week and was livid).
It feels like the entire system is being held up with duct tape and string and while I don't love the system, it falling apart doesn't feel safer for the people most at risk either.
If nothing else, there's a lot of us trying to shoulder the sky on our backs. It feels worth continuing to try.
Maybe I'm a bit complacent over here, in my non-USA liberal democracy. Maybe things over there are worse than they look from a distance. Sorry if I seemed too flippant.
But I'm also aware that governments can pass laws even when the majority of the populace don't agree with those laws. Government policies don't always reflect popular opinion - especially in a country which is renowned for gerrymandering and other unfair electoral practices. It's ironic that a country that calls itself the leader of the free world and an upholder of democracy is not actually as democratic as it could be. So, I know that, while governments across the USA make anti-transgender and anti-gay laws, that doesn't necessarily reflect what the broader American population might believe.
The American right is strangely, and perhaps uniquely, animated by fear and othering of LGBT (and especially trans) people for the past few years. This has resulted in a whole zoo of anti-trans bills in various US states which is a phenomenon not unlike the big push to make anti-gay marriage laws in the mid-2000s. On one hand, this is a reactionary response to growing acceptance. They feel the cultural conscious moving against them, so they lash out with their political power. On the other hand, positive progress is never a given, and this may indicate a real backslide or erosion in public support.
Overall, these types of laws are incredibly popular among conservatives which is why right-wing media in the country has gone full tilt in promoting these bigoted laws. Unlike other eras of US conservative politics, it is very much led by populist sentiment rather than the agenda being set by trusted leaders.
We have our own right-wing anti-LGBT people here in Australia, too. Such as the right-wing Prime Minister who went out of his way to re-write our Marriage Act in 2004, so that it specifically said "marriage is between one man and one woman". Even today, two decades later, there are anti-gay and anti-transgender people around. There was a fuss recently about a female state politician attending an anti-trans rally, which was then gate-crashed by neo-Nazis. And some local councils have cancelled Drag Story Time events after receiving threats of violence against the events and against the hosts. And so on.
So, we're not immune to prejudice here in Australia. Some people, as you say, are responding to what they see as the culture moving against them, and them losing power or prestige.
However... these anti-LGBT voices in Australia are definitely seen as a lunatic fringe, rather than representative of the mainstream, or even a significant minority. They're outliers, and all mainstream politicians reject that message of hate and violence, even if some mainstream politicians might agree slightly with their underlying concerns.
I have lived a significant portion of my life in both the US and Australia (I am originally from the US and immigrated to Australia 11 years ago). They are very similar cultures in many ways, much closer than you'd normally expect between two separate countries. However, there are a couple differences that make me very worried for my friends and family in the US in a way that I do not worry for my friends in Australia:
One, the voting system in Australia is just plain better in almost every way (there is one glaring exception I can think of—people can campaign to voters waiting in line—but it ends of being fairly minor on net, although I do think Australia would be greatly improved by legislating harshly against this). Legislators do still write unpopular laws, but it's far more rare, and those laws often do not persist very long. On the whole, the government is much more concerned with what the population as a whole desires because the population as a whole actually votes, and they vote in a system (ranked choice) designed to make it far easier for voters to eject elected officials from their seats. Australian career politicians are keenly aware that their constituents could very well cut their careers short, in a way that American politicians are far less concerned.
Two, the Australian population (taken as a whole; obviously individuals vary) is more mature, rational, and cohesive. It's hard to say why this is. It's certainly not (as some people on the right might try to argue) because the US has a more multicultural population, because that is not the case (Australia has a substantially larger immigrant population by percentage, one of the very highest in the world, yet it is also one of the most politically stable countries in the world). One might argue it's because Australia has a smaller population; however, many of the most politically divisive and war-torn countries in the world are quite small, so I'm not convinced that that is actually an important factor. I personally suspect it comes down partially to culture/history (the US was severely divided on the question of slavery, and those two positions have spawned their own distinct cultural identities), but also comes down to the less equal distribution of resources in the US. You see a far bigger divide between the poor and the wealthy, and even people in the middle are one serious illness away from homelessness. I think this inequality and constant anxiety in the US creates a general culture of paranoia, isolation, and rivalry.
These are some of the biggest differences I've personally observed along these lines:
Perhaps this is the case in Australia, but it doesn't reflect the status quo in Europe, at least on trans rights. The UK in particular is probably even worse than the US in this regard -- while it's a partisan issue in the US, there are virulent transphobes in both major parties and some minor ones (even those on the left) in the UK. While I think the influence of vocal transphobes on politics in the rest of Western Europe isn't as bad as in the UK (it's a low bar to clear), the vocal minority of transphobes is absolutely influential enough that mainstream politicians, especially those right of European center, do listen to them and back their "reasonable concerns" in parliament.
These issues become a lot more visible when you yourself are trans and following the politics around legislation in your particular country. So for non-trans people or people from elsewhere, the political backlash to our existence in a given country ends up being a lot less visible.
I appreciate the reconsideration. Trust that I'm not a believer in American exceptionalism, and thus don't find it ironic anymore that the US does what it does, but though the government may pass unpopular laws targeting abortion or LGBTQ folks, what I find is a large number of people who "think it goes too far" still won't vote any different because it doesn't impact them directly. (Or they think it won't ). The polling changes don't necessarily reflect a long term trend, but combined with the recent pushes to ban books in schools at all levels of the government and small local governments being taken over by people accusing queer teachers of being sexual predators, it's concerning.
As I said, the sky may not be falling, but something is trying to land on us very hard right now.
(And while your country may not be targeting queer folks now, the rhetoric isn't limited to the US, nor is any country seemingly immune to scapegoating of an unpopular sub-group. )
Strong agree. This didn’t drop 7 points in one year. There is some weird statistical anomaly.
This is hardly surprising - the right-wing hate media has been waging an all-out war to monsterize the LGBTQ+ community w/ virtually no mainstream pushback (if anything "liberal" outlets like the NYT and NPR have been supportive, like they are with all wars), and as much as Americans are loathe to admit it, propaganda works.
Truly the NYT has decided to be fully on the side of the anti-trans voice. And I'm aware that this isn the only area where there's obvious bias in their reporting but it's just so glaring in its "concern" for trans kids with zero or near-zero interaction with actual trans kids/teens/adults who transitioned as kids and medical professionals in favor of "whistleblowers" who were lying/violating patient private and parents who are opposed to their kid's transition.
It'd be nice to hear about trans joy (and queer joy) anywhere near so often
I actually listened to a podcast that interviewed the current publisher of the NYT where he was asked specifically about their trans issues coverage. His response was something along the lines of "we're pro-trans but we owe it to our readership to cover the very real debate about the impact of transitioning among children happening in the medical community".
I can understand that position, and in a vacuum it's perfectly reasonable. But we don't live in a vacuum, we live in a society, and their coverage is responsible for some network effects that they need to take into consideration. Their coverage is directly responsible for making life measurably worse for trans people, especially trans youth. They give ammunition to people who want to harm them, who will say "this is from an ultraliberal paper so it must be true!" It lets people in power punch down to people who do not have power. The fact that he doesn't see that is a tragedy.
I'll second you on that queer/trans joy motion.
that's just straight-up misinformation, though. there isn't a "very real debate" on this issue happening within the medical community (to be clear, talking about evidence-based medicine, not some woo pseudoscience). the claims from these right wing monsters over how gender affirmation for children is approached by their doctors are almost always lies. it's incredibly concerning that the top brass at the NYT is pushing this narrative, albeit indirectly. they're giving air time and consideration to people and ideas the medical community actively denounce, then framing it as "reasonable debate"
Please keep in mind that it wasn't a quote; I'd encourage you to listen to or read the transcript of the interview to get the full picture. I linked it in an earlier reply.
Reading the transcript now, and it's actually worse than you've described :( especially considering those statements immediately followed him saying they wouldn't provide a platform for misinformation.
I just think it's a cop out when they would also "owe their readers" the "pro trans" aka what medical professionals actually recommend side of the story too. And to debunk the anti-trans arguments that are based in bad science. But I'm not seeing that happening just a lot of "but what if it's actually bad? It could be! Who could say?"
It's disingenuous. At best it's naive, which is not something I associate with major newspaper publishers. Granting as much grace as possible they're failing at their job.
I really don't think he's acting in bad faith at all. It all meshes in with his overarching beliefs. If you want to understand what he was saying, here's the podcast I was listening to, complete with transcript if you don't want to spend the time listening to it. I'd like to quote the section, but it's a bit too much to fit in the context of a comment.
I would love to change his mind on his coverage of trans issues, but he's got a fairly consistent worldview so I don't see it being an easy task.
I did read through it. I just find it contradictory when contrasted with his rhetorical question up top:
It comes across as the typical "just asking questions" but it is incredibly frustrating to watch only those questions being asked and truly only of the "skeptics". It's the equivalent of covering flat-earthers, multiple times, and in such a way that NASA and everyone who relies on the round earth , to be finding their articles used as evidence against them and having trouble living their day to day lives as a result.
I'm not asking him to pretend there isn't a debate, but to stop framing the "concern" as the only valid viewpoint and to stop treating the debate of "random whistleblower and conservative mom" vs "Every major medical and mental health organization's best practices" as two equal sides.
I just think it falls very flat while literally admitting to having to run corrections. I have plenty of issues with the NYT. But I think there's a sort of "this is all theoretical" vibe when it so very clearly isn't. And the people who are writing these stories go on Twitter and argue not that the controversy should be covered, but that they were right to be "concerned" and shouldn't be criticized for their own errors.
I know "doctors say things are, generally, fine" isn't a headline. I'm not naive enough to think that there's actual care about the impact either. I just think he's failing at his stated mission. And I think as long as it's essentially an academic issue to him (as long as any of these topics are academic issues to publishers) then it won't change his mind regardless.
I listen to only NPR and nothing else.
God I fucking hate NRP though. They are very Republican friendly and I fucking hate it.
Yeah I hear you -- I was a pretty dedicated NPR listener/supporter in the 90s, then during the Clinton impeachment fiasco had to really do a hard double-take listening to them adopt every single fucking one of the GOP talking points and push them as if they weren't nonsense. Their reprehensible behavior leading up to and during the Iraq invasion finally broke me though, and I haven't listened to them since.
They're hard to find on the airwaves, but I would recommend checking out Democracy Now! and Thom Hartmann's show; also Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has a weekly show Counterspin that's worth tracking down.
This is proof that Propaganda works.
Republicans went into overdrive on this one the last few years.
I'd mentioned a systematic propaganda effort to label LGBTQ+ people as pedophiles above.
Here's an egregious example of how impossible it is to even refute the accusation.
I'll believe this when it has some demographics with real numbers to go with it. Enough change of those will skew results like this.
How many are old? How many are republican? How many are heavily religious? All these people I bet are more likely to take a phone survey. Most Americans don't even answer their phone when random people call and that alone is greatly skewing results as only a certain type of person is taking the surveys.
The article discusses party affiliation explicitly, but as far as age, religion, and number of respondents goes -- in the polling business, these are called "cross tabs" and are conveniently located in the end of the article: https://news.gallup.com/file/poll/507239/230619MoralIssues.pdf
The first page explains their methodology, which I can quote partially here:
As @Algernon_Asimov stated, Gallup is a well-respected pollster with a long track record. If you're curious, here's how fivethirtyeight ranks Gallup in terms of political elections accuracy (which is a different kind of polling than done here). I apologize if what I'm about to say comes across as rude, but like, if we were discussing dictionaries and somebody started saying "well who are these Merriam-Webster people anyway?" they'd come across as a little silly.
Great analogy! :)
It's Gallup, a reputable poll-taking organisation. They study how to make good polls, and they know how to ensure a survey is demographically representative.
Sorry, I don't believe people just because they claim to be awesome or just because they're trusted. They're leaving out all the people smart enough not to pickup their phone for strangers. How can that be good polling?
Phones aside, I'd like to know how we regressed 4 years since 2022 and pointing fingers at conservatives/republicans isn't an explanation. This means a lot of people would have to totally change their views on what's morally right and wrong. People don't just do that for no reason and I can't think of anything big enough to do that, so what changed that was bigger than past events?
Gallup has thought of this. They are experts in the field. I'm not saying that their methodology is untouchable, but "people don't answer the phone as much anymore" would not be a surprise to them.
They have a methodology blog if you would like to learn more.
You're right: that's not an explanation. Or, at least, not the whole explanation.
It's worth pointing out that the level of acceptance of same-sex relations:
Has dropped in individual years previously (look at 2019, 2016, and 2012).
Has continued its overall upward trend over the past two decades, despite occasional single-year drops.
But, even against that background, there's been a lot of statements and protests and legislation against transgender people and gay people in the USA over the past couple of years. This is obviously having some effect on public opinion there.
These two causes - statistical noise and current protests - probably explain the recent drop in acceptance of same-sex relations.