'Do Gays Unsettle You?' [View all]
Source: New York Times
By Frank Bruni
... A politician who says awful, hateful things about gays and lesbians can still find a warm enough reception and plenty of traction in one of our two major political parties. ... I don’t expect any of them to win the nomination, partly because their particular, pronounced degree of closed-mindedness won’t wash with the number of Americans whose favor they need. Hurray for that.
But I expect that on their way to defeat they’ll turn us gays into punch lines and punching bags. I expect that I’ll hear and watch large audiences cheer and egg them on. It’s a sickening spectacle, if you pay it any heed.
Sarah Kate Ellis wishes that you would. She’s the head of Glaad, a prominent gay rights group, and she and it are doing something important right now. ... Glaad commissioned a Harris Poll late last year. I was given a first look at the results, which underscored how uncomfortable many Americans remain with gay, lesbian and bisexual people — and, even more so, with transgender people.
About 30 percent of the respondents who didn’t identify themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender said that it would unsettle them to learn that their physician or child’s teacher did. Close to 45 percent said that they would be uneasy about bringing a child to a same-sex wedding. Thirty-six percent feel uncomfortable when they see a same-sex couple hold hands.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-same-sex-marriage-republican-scorn-and-unfinished-work.html
= new reply since forum marked as read