Two steps forward, one step backby digby
And if this continues, it will be one step forward, two steps back.
A new survey commissioned by the LGBT media-advocacy group GLAAD and conducted by The Harris Poll found that fewer non-LGBT adults reported being comfortable with their LGBT peers than in previous years.
This marks the first time in the four-year history of the Accelerating Acceptance report that GLAAD has witnessed a decline in LGBT acceptance.
“This year, the acceptance pendulum abruptly stopped and swung in the opposite direction,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis wrote in the 2018 report, noting the sharp contrast between this year’s results and the last three years of watching Americans report being “more comfortable with LGBTQ people and more supportive of LGBTQ issues.”
The annual GLAAD survey asks non-LGBT Americans to describe how comfortable they are in several scenarios involving LGBT people, like learning that a doctor is LGBT, witnessing a same-sex couple holding hands, or worshipping alongside an LGBT person at church.
This year’s version, conducted in November 2017, found “a decline with people’s comfort year-over-year,” not just in a few of the scenarios, but “in every LGBTQ situation.”
For example, in 2016, 27 percent of non-LGBT Americans said that they would be “very” or “somewhat” uncomfortable with learning that a family member is LGBT; in 2017, that figure jumped all the way up to 32 percent.
The conservative evangelicals are the most loyal members of the Republican base, giving cover to anything that Trump and the wingnuts want to do. And they do have an agenda. Rolling back LGBT rights is right at the top with abortion. At some point they are going to call in their chips.
Yes, this can happen. Lots of things can go backwards under the right circumstances.
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