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A
majority of voters surveyed in a
recent poll said civil rights laws
for gay men and lesbians are
meant to secure equal rights
rather than special rights.
Most of the respondents also expressed sup
port for the federal Employment Non-Discrimi
nation A ct and Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
The survey was conducted for the Human
Rights Campaign, a national gay and lesbian
group based in Washington, D.C.
The poll, done in November, surveyed 800
randomly selected adults in the United States
who indicated they planned to or had voted in
the 1998 congressional elections. The margin of
error is 3.5 percent.
HRC is touting the findings as consistent
with the results of the 1998 elections.
“American voters rejected the mean-spirited
anti-gay positions that have been expressed
throughout the election season and registered
their dissatisfaction at the polls,” says Elizabeth
Birch, H RC’s executive director. "In most cases
where the voters had a choice, they picked the
moderate pro-gay candidate.”
The bipartisan poll, conducted by the Demo
cratic pollsters Lake, Snell, Perry and Associ
ates, and the Republican polling firm American
Viewpoint, shows the recent negative attacks
against gay and lesbian people have not
decreased but rather increased support for gay
and lesbian issues, says HRC communications
director David Smith.
H er e ’ s N o t
to
P ollyana P oll
New poll shows hopeful signs that voters are inching toward
recognizing the realities of gay and lesbian citizenship by Gip
“T hat anti-gay activity backfired,” he
explains. “W hat we are seeing is the country
moving toward supporting gay and lesbian peo
ple. The country is moving in a more tolerant
direction.”
Nearly two-thirds of the voters polled said
the U.S. has become more tolerant of gay men
and lesbians over the past decade. Almost 20
percent said there has been no change, while 13
percent described the country as less tolerant.
A majority of the voters— 54 percent— said
that civil rights laws aimed at protecting gay
men and lesbians are meant to bring about equal
rights. Fewer than a third said the laws are
aimed at creating special rights.
In H RC ’s May 1995 study, voters were split
on the issue, with 41 percent saying the laws
were a matter of equal rights and 38 percent
dubbing them special rights. The polling com
panies call this change a “significant increase” in
the perception that the laws provide equal
rights.
W hen told that fewer than a dozen states
currently have laws that prevent employment
discrimination based on sexual orientation,
HRC Executive Director Elizabeth Birch
more than 58 percent of those surveyed
expressed support the federal Employment Non-
Discrimination Act, a law that would prohibit
employment discrimination based on sexual ori
entation. More than a third strongly support the
legislation, but a quarter oppose it.
Nearly 80 percent of respondents said they
Y o u r H ealth
T
he Clinton administration has virtually ignored gay men
and lesbians in putting together the nation’s health blue
print for the next decade.
The report is Healthy People 2010, which the U .S. Depart
ment of Health and Human Services describes as “the basis for
monitoring and tracking health status, health risks, and use of
prevention services.”
According to Fred Fox, policy director of the Gay and Les
bian Medical Association, the plan’s goal is to eliminate health
care disparities among various populations, notably minority
groups.
“Gays and lesbians are left out as a minority,” he says,
adding he is shocked that gay men and lesbians “have virtually
no place at the table.”
One GLM A member conducted a keyword search of an
electronic version of the 800-page draft document. He found
the word “gay" used twice, while “lesbian” and “trartsgender”
did not appear at all.
Even in the context of HIV and AIDS, gay men “appear as
the category of men having sex with men, and the word ‘gay’ is
never used," Fox says.
“That is an interesting case of where we have a place at the
table, but it is a funny one [because] they can’t even speak our
name,” he adds.
“The feeling that I have from reading the document,” Fox
continues, “is that gays and lesbians don’t exist, or if they do, it
is in the Trent Lott context of pathologies.”
Winnie Stachelberg, political director of the Human Rights
Campaign, says Healthy People 2010 fails to address homopho
bia in the health care and medical research communities.
That homophobia, she contends, has blocked the develop
ment of solutions to health care problems pertaining to gay
men and lesbians.
“The good news is that it is a draft,” she says. “The bad news
is that {it is from] an administration, and a department in par
ticular, that has been so responsive to the gay and lesbian com
munity.”
She adds, “I was disturbed by the lack of recognition of our
unique needs.”
Areas of concern include HIV and A ID S, lesbians’
increased health risk for breast and cervical cancer, domestic
violence, and the health needs of gay and lesbian youth.
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thought it was already illegal to fire someone
due to sexual orientation. The number of people
holding this belief has not changed much over
the last few years.
“Our poll reveals that only 14 percent of
people realize that it is still legal to fire people in
40 states because of their sexual orientation,”
Smith says. “We need to work to clarify that
misconception.”
About 56 percent of voters surveyed favor
the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, and 40 per
cent strongly favor it. More than 60 percent
favor the act when told that sexual orientation
is not covered under existing hate crimes laws.
Support for hate crimes legislation extends
across all party groups even more broadly than
support for the Employment Non-Discrimina
tion Act. The results show 65 percent of
Democrats favor the hate crimes law while 51
percent of Republicans favor it. About 48 per
cent of independents favor the law.
Just over half of those surveyed responded
that they disagree with U.S. Sen. Majority
Leader Trent Lott’s statement equating homo
sexuality with alcoholism or kleptomania. Thir
ty-eight percent, however, agree with the sena
tor.
Additionally, strong majorities of those sur
veyed favor legal recognition of gay and lesbian
relationships for the purposes of health care cov
erage, hospital visitation and inheritance rights.
No more than a third opposed any of those
rights.
A Department of Health and Human Services fact sheet
notes that Healthy People 2010 was written over a period of
months by “an alliance of over 600 national membership orga
nizations representing professional, voluntary, and business sec
tors, and state and territorial public health, mental health, sub
stance abuse, and environmental agencies.”
Gay and lesbian groups were not included.
The draft document was available for public comment from
Sept. 15 to Dec. 15. Public meetings were held in Washington,
D.C., and five other cities during that time.
Still, Ben Schatz, executive director of GLM A , says gay and
lesbian health advocates had little notice about the draft’s con
tents.
He says federal health officials “have an outreach process,
and [gay groups] weren’t in it.”
Schatz adds, “The burden is on them, it is their responsibil
ity to reach out to us.”
GLMA will soon hire its second policy person. HRC,
meanwhile, has one health policy advocate, who focuses pri
marily on HIV.
The National Lesbian and Gay Health Association has vir
tually collapsed and no longer has paid staff.
■ Reported by B ob ROEHR
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