The Correlation BetweenEducation Levels and Homophobia

Some time back I did a post on a study that correlated levels of education with various Christian denominations. At the upper end of the educational scale were the Episcopal and Lutheran Churches, bot of which are gay accepting, and at the bottom of the educational scale were Christian fundamentalists and Pentecostals, both of which are typically rabidly gay. This result which to some might have seemed to be merely a coincidence is anything but based on the findings of a new University of Florida study which found that levels of homophobia correlated closely with levels of education. The more highly educated were more gay accepting and tolerant while the uneducated and ignorant were more homophobic. Thus, it make sense that church denominations with overall higher levels of education are the ones that accept gays while the more uneducated denominations do not. The findings would also seem to correlate well with the homophobia of the GOP base which, in my opinion, is increasingly made up of uneducated racists and what was once termed white trash. Here are some highlights from the Gainesville Sun:

*

The education level of Florida voters, not race, best predicted support for the state's gay marriage ban, according to a new University of Florida study rebutting conventional wisdom. The study found education was about five times as important as race in determining whether a county's residents favored the ban. The results contradict claims that newly registered black voters who cast ballots for Barack Obama were a socially conservative group that can be credited with passing the ban.

*

Controlling for political and socioeconomic factors, the study found each additional 1 percent of a county's population with bachelor's degrees correlated with a 1 percent decrease in support for the amendment. In comparison, each 1 percent increase in a county's black population led to two-tenths of a percent increase in support. "There's a lot of evidence showing increased education leads to greater tolerance," Smith said.

*

Stated differently, the study shows that if politicians want to embrace ignorance and low educational levels, they should listen to the homophobes. If not, they need to reject the propaganda of the professional Christians and fundamentalist Christian zealots. It aso suggests that blacks need to be attentive to who they allow to manipulate them - uneducated Christian fundamentalist are less tolerant and less likely to support equality for blacks as well as gays.