Skip to main content

New top story from Time: Non-Discrimination Protections Are Hugely Popular — Yet Far From Law

https://ift.tt/2OZHZWa

This article is part of the The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday.

If you watched last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about an anti-discrimination bill to protect the rights of LGBTQ Americans, you’d have come away thinking the series of safeguards being discussed were deeply divisive and threatening to the lawmakers’ constituents, and especially young women who play sports. But a new poll of more than 10,000 Americans, released today, shows just the opposite: that non-discrimination policies are overwhelmingly popular by a 3-to-1 margin.

The study, from the non-partisan Public Religion Research Institute, asked voters about “laws that would protect gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people against discrimination in jobs, public accomodation and housing.” Among all respondents, 76% said they supported such proposals, up 5 percentage points from when PRRI first asked the question in 2015. Among Republicans, that number is up 1 percentage point from 2015, to 62% support.

And on the question of same-sex marriage, for the first time, a slim majority of Republicans, 51%, support those rights as decided in 2015 by the Supreme Court, according to the survey.

To help explain the numbers, I spoke with Natalie Jackson, PRRI’s director of research. Below is our phone conversation about the Equality Act, passed through the House on Feb. 25 and now under consideration in the Senate. We discussed some religious groups’ opposition to it on the grounds they’d have to work with individuals they consider sinful, and how protecting women’s sports is the new reason conservatives are opposing protections for transgender individuals. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

PE: I’m looking at these numbers and I find them fascinating. What is your top line coming out of this?

One is that, even among groups that we would expect and who are more hesitant to support LGBTQ rights issues, we show a lot of support regarding the non-discrimination protections. It’s rare to see a policy issue with this much support from the general public, including 60 or more percent of Republicans and white Evangelical Protestants.

The secondary one is that same-sex marriage has continued to gain support and evolve. For the first time we have more than half of Republicans supporting that. Just the trajectory of opinion on that issue in the last 15 years continues to be incredibly quick.

Let’s unpack that a bit because there are two issues here. Non-discrimination policy is not the equivalent of marriage equality.

Right. There is an additional layer to the marriage equality that gets tied up in it and that makes support a little bit lower and that is the religious issue. Particularly for Evangelical Protestants — and particularly the white Evangelical Protestants — there is a strong message within their religion that homosexuality is a sin and it should not be condoned in a marriage, which is viewed fundamentally as a religious covenant. Whereas for other groups without, that religious layer support is a bit higher.

I think the non-discrimination protections is free of that religious element, with the exception of the religious liberty argument. But in general, it’s easier for people to agree that this group should not be discriminated against than it is to say we should allow marriage.

I was surprised that Hispanic Catholic numbers were so high in terms of support for these rights. What is happening there?

We have seen Hispanic Catholics becoming more liberal. They’ve always been fairly liberal on this issue. White Catholics are equally in favor of non-discrimination against people of color, including Hispanics, Black Americans, Asian Americans. They pretty universally bind together to say, No, discrimination in any form is not OK. I think that’s what we’re seeing with the Hispanic Catholics. It’s a bit less pronounced with Hispanic Protestants because of the influence of the Evangelical movements. With the Hispanic Catholics, they are less encumbered by the religious aspect of it and more activated by the discrimination is wrong piece.

It’s striking that the majority of Republicans now favor marriage equality. What happened there?

It is quite a transformation. We have the chart of the last 10 years and Republicans started at 31% in favor [or same-sex marriage equality] and moved up a full 20 points. So that is a remarkable increase, but the increase has happened across the board. Democrats have increased by 18 points in the same time period. Independents are up 25%. To some degree, it’s the entire society moving together.

One natural inclination might be to attribute it to the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled on this and made it the law of the land, but we actually don’t see a jump in 2015 when that happened. It’s been a bit of just more acceptance and more openness in society, as well as I think there is a powerful element to knowing people who are LGBTQ. We know the proportion of Americans who identify as LGBT or Q has been increasing. So we have increased awareness of those people and increasing numbers. When you know someone who fits into that category, that moves you considerably because it’s no longer abstract.

So why is the Equality Act not the law of the land? If the numbers are where you say they are, why is it good politics to be a hold-out on this?

The short answer is because Republicans are not necessarily voting on these issues. There’s a significant disconnect. There’s always a disconnect between what people think on any given issue and what they’re voting on. There’s also a disconnect between talking about the opinions of all Americans, which is what we’re doing here, and those who actually turn out to vote. The short version is that when we ask people, what issues are most critical to them, unfortunately, LGBTQ issues are not high on that list.

It also gets back to the theory of representation. What does it mean to represent people if they think this way? Are you obligated to follow that? The arguments against the Equality Acts that we’re seeing are not based on ‘we should be able to discriminate against these people.’ They’re based on things like religious liberty. And we’ve seen quite a few attacks on transgender people. That seems to be an area where they’re focusing and opinion is very nuanced.

When you lump transgender rights in with gay rights, things get muddy pretty quickly. Is my view accurate?

So when you, ask the question as we do — do you think lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender people should be protected from discrimination? — the answer is yes. When you dive down into things like transgender sports, it does get muddy very quickly.

I remember after Obergefell, a lot of activists were worried about a backlash and the pendulum swinging away from LGBTQ rights. Has the swing away ended?

We never really saw that much of a pendulum swinging backlash in our data. We have seen pretty consistent upward trajectory. [3.1 and 3.2 when live] I’m personally a little bit skeptical that we saw much of a backlash.

I was thinking about the spate of bathroom bills that got pretty nasty, pretty quickly.

The bathroom bills have somewhat gone away, but they’ve been replaced now with the sports issues with the thin veil of women’s rights laid over it.

Polling — not future-telling — is your area of specialization, but looking ahead, what does this conversation look like in five years?

At the federal level, at the national level, I think we will see our policies and our public opinion continue to move in a more positive direction for LGBTQ rights. I would anticipate some of these trend lines generally staying about the same. At some point, we are going to see kind of a top-off. The support for same-sex marriage over the last 15 years has continued on roughly the same trajectory. I think at some point that is going to kind of plateau. I don’t have a good feel for where that might be, though. It might be somewhere around where the non-discrimination protections have kind of been, which is that 75% to 80% range. That’s generally about as much public favor as we get for any issue.

Make sense of what matters in Washington. Sign up for the daily D.C. Brief newsletter.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

New top story from Time: Little Recognition and Less Pay: These Female Healthcare Workers Are Rural India’s First Defense Against COVID-19

https://ift.tt/3mrDgrm Archana Ghugare’s ringtone, a Hindu devotional song, has been the background score of her life since March. By 7 a.m. on a mid-October day, the 41-year-old has already received two calls about suspected COVID-19 cases in Pavnar, her village in the Indian state of Maharashtra. As she gets ready and rushes out the door an hour later, she receives at least four more. “My family jokes that not even Prime Minister Modi gets as many calls as I do,” she says. Ghugare, and nearly a million other Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) assigned to rural villages and small towns across India, are on the front lines of the country’s fight against the coronavirus . Every day, Ghugare goes door to door in search of potential COVID-19 cases, working to get patients tested or to help them find treatment. With 8 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, India has the second-highest tally in the world after the United States and its health infrastructure struggled to co

Just in Time for Bike Month: The Active Communities Plan Interactive Map!

Just in Time for Bike Month: The Active Communities Plan Interactive Map! By Christopher Kidd Image of the new Active Communities Plan (ACP ) interactive map  As part of our ongoing public outreach about the Active Communities Plan , the SFMTA has created a new ACP interactive map .  The release of the map comes just a couple of weeks after we began collecting feedback through our new survey .   The map shows conditions for biking, scooting and rolling across San Francisco, as well as multiple layers of analysis conducted by the Active Communities Plan team. It is meant to help users understand how different factors like comfort, safety and network quality influence whether people decide to use active transportation or not.   We want users to have the opportunity to explore and compare data, reflect on how it compares to their experiences with active transportation and provide input about what kinds of solutions work best.  The interactive map has six main layers to explore: 

New top story from Time: Latest Tests Bring Israel a Step Closer to Commercial Drones

https://ift.tt/3lyZxGe TEL AVIV, Israel — Dozens of drones floated through the skies of Tel Aviv on Monday, ferrying cartons of ice cream and sushi across the city in an experiment that officials hope provided a glimpse of the not-too-distant future. Israel’s National Drone Initiative, a government program, carried out the drill to prepare for a world in which large quantities of commercial deliveries will be made by drones to take pressure off highly congested urban roads. The two-year program aims to apply the capabilities of Israeli drone companies to establish a nationwide network where customers can order goods and have them delivered to pick up spots. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The project, now in the third of eight stages, is still in its infancy and faces many questions about security and logistics. “We had 700 test flights at the start of this year and now we are close to 9,000 flights,” said Daniella Partem, from Israel Innovation Authority, a partner in th

More 20 MPH Streets Coming Soon Near You

More 20 MPH Streets Coming Soon Near You By Christine Osorio Last October when California Assembly Bill 43 (Friedman) was signed into law, we posted a blog about which gave cities new flexibility in setting speed limits—specifically reducing them. “Speed Management,” a reference that is still in development, focused on reducing speed limits in key business activity districts where at least 50% are dining or retail. Since the bill went into effect last month, we’ve already started lowering speed limits by 5 MPH (from 25 MPH to 20 MPH) in the first phase of approved corridors, four of which have been implemented:  San Bruno Avenue, from Silver to Paul avenues (Completed January 2022)  Polk Street, from Filbert to Sutter streets (Completed January 2022)  Haight Street, from Stanyan Street to Central Avenue and from Webster to Steiner streets (Completed February 2022)  24th Street, from Diamond to Chattanooga streets and from Valencia Street to San Bruno Avenue (Completed

New top story from Time: Donald Trump and Trump Biden Square Off for First Debate

https://ift.tt/3kQSmpA President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are facing off on the debate stage during one of the most turbulent periods in modern American history. A viral pandemic has killed 200,000 Americans and pummeled the economy, racial justice protests continue in towns and cities, and vast fires wreak environmental disaster across the American West . Adding to the national sense of foreboding, Trump has refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power i f he loses the election and is using his bully pulpit to sow distrust in the voting process and spread false allegations that voting by mail —a safe alternative for many during the pandemic—will lead to rampant voter fraud. ( It won’t.) There’s a lot to debate. While the head-to-head is an opportunity for both candidates to convince Americans that they are the right person to lead the country through this tumultuous time, it’s also a moment for voters to see the two men’s styles set

New top story from Time: Pfizer-BioNTech Have Started Testing Their COVID-19 Vaccine in Children Under 12

https://ift.tt/3vWOQjL Alejandra and Marisol Gerardo are nine years old but already making a little bit of history. The twin sisters are among the first young children to get vaccinated with a COVID-19 shot in Pfizer-BioNTech’s study of its vaccine in kids under age 12. Alejandra and Marisol had their blood drawn in the morning on March 24, then got their first dose of the two-dose vaccine later that afternoon. “Their primary concern was, ‘is it going to hurt,’” says their father, Dr. Charles Gerardo, chief of emergency medicine at Duke University School of Medicine. “They’re not too worried about the long term side effects; they’re looking at the moment, not the future.” Testing the vaccine in younger children will answer critical questions about how much immunity the shots can provide, and potentially give parents and education officials more confidence in re-opening schools. While it appears that younger children don’t get as sick with COVID-19 as older teens and adult

FOX NEWS: Top baby names list for 2021 reveals familiar trends For the second year in a row, these two names are the most popular for girls and boys – leading BabyCenter's Top 100 Baby Names list.

Top baby names list for 2021 reveals familiar trends For the second year in a row, these two names are the most popular for girls and boys – leading BabyCenter's Top 100 Baby Names list. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/2ZZEl3u

New top story from Time: Google’s Employee Vaccine Mandate Could Influence Other Companies to Do the Same

https://ift.tt/3BQnXRv (SAN RAMON, Calif.) — Google is postponing a return to the office for most workers until mid-October and rolling out a policy that will eventually require everyone to be vaccinated once its sprawling campuses are fully reopened in an attempt to fight the spreading Delta variant. In a Wednesday email sent to Google’s more than 130,000 employees, CEO Sundar Pichai said the company is now aiming to have most of its workforce back to its offices beginning Oct. 18 instead of its previous target date of Sept. 1. The decision also affects tens of thousands of contractors who Google intends to continue to pay while access to its campuses remains limited. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “This extension will allow us time to ramp back into work while providing flexibility for those who need it,” Pichai wrote. And Pichai disclosed that once offices are fully reopened, everyone working there will have be vaccinated. The requirement will be first imposed at Goog

New top story from Time: Corky Lee, Photographer Who Spent His Career Spotlighting Asian and Pacific Islander-Americans, Dies at 73

https://ift.tt/2Ymu9yf Corky Lee, a photojournalist who spent five decades spotlighting the often ignored Asian and Pacific Islander American communities, has died. He was 73. Lee died Wednesday in New York City’s Queens borough of complications from COVID-19, his family said in a statement. “His passion was to rediscover, document and champion through his images the plight of all Americans but most especially that of Asian and Pacific Islanders,” his family said. The self-described “undisputed unofficial Asian American Photographer Laureate,” Lee used his eye to pursue what he saw as “photographic justice.” Almost always sporting a camera around his neck, he was present at many seminal moments impacting Asian America over a 50-year career. He was born Young Kwok Lee in New York City to Chinese immigrant parents. He was the first child in his family to go to college, graduating from City University of New York’s Queens College. A self-taught freelance photographer, Lee

New top story from Time: I Interviewed Hundreds of New Yorkers. Here’s What They Taught Me

https://ift.tt/3cgW6zl In 2014 I was given a unique assignment: move to New York and talk to people, hundreds of them, and then somehow create a book using their words to describe the experience of living in New York right now. I spoke to New Yorkers in all five boroughs, in coffee shops, in pizzerias, in elevator shafts, on job sites. At one point, when the book was nearly finished, I began to recognize a by-product of the interviewing process. Something happens when you ingest so many stories from so many New Yorkers. I learned a few things. I learned about express trains and egg creams, the route of the New York marathon and the strange naming protocols of the streets of Queens. I was taught how to steal a car in Manhattan, how to move properly on a sidewalk. Next came a list of specifics: best bagels, best pupusas, best baked clams (Donovan’s in Woodside). But I had no idea that speaking to New Yorkers would mean more important, subtle lessons would be shared from some of