Survey: Young Republicans Increasingly Anti-LGBT

While support for LGBT rights has been increasing across almost all demographics, one group stands out for its decreasing support of LGBT rights: Republicans under 30 years of age. While no specific cause for the growing homophobia among younger Republicans was identified, one theory is that the ranks of young Republicans is shrinking with even 54% of evangelical Christians now supporting LGBT non-discrimination protections.  Indeed, overall, the percentage of Americans identifying as Republican has declined. The New York Times looks at the survey findings which suggests that the GOP is increasingly out of step with the majority Americans when it comes to LGBT rights and acceptance.  Here are excerpts (which also suggest that the lower one's level of education, the more anti-LGBT one is likely to be):

Support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights has increased or remained steady among Mormons, Muslims, political independents, Southerners, seniors and a number of other demographic groups in the United States since 2015, a new survey found. One notable outlier: young Republicans. Between 2015 and 2018, support for laws aimed at protecting L.G.B.T. individuals from discrimination fell by nearly 10 percentage points among Republicans under the age of 30. This was one of the key findings from a survey of more than 40,000 Americans’ views on L.G.B.T. issues that the Public Religion Research Institute released Tuesday.

The majority of young Republicans surveyed — around 63 percent — continued to support such measures. But given that 74 percent were in favor in 2015, the shift was striking, . . . “It was one of the largest and most significant drops that we saw,” Dr. Jones said.

[O]ne hypothesis he offered was that the ranks of young Republicans are thinning, with more socially liberal individuals opting to identify as independent. “The Republican Party is becoming more ideologically pure,” he suggested.

Sixty-two percent of Americans continue to support same-sex marriage, the survey found. But among all racial and ethnic groups surveyed, individuals identifying as Asian-Pacific Islander Americans demonstrated the highest level of support for both same-sex marriage (75 percent) and for laws that would protect L.G.B.T. people from discrimination in jobs, public accommodations and housing (73 percent, four percentage points more than Americans over all).

These figures could be partly explained by another finding: Researchers spotted a strong correlation between participants’ educational level and support of L.G.B.T. rights. Over all, Asian-Pacific Islander Americans were far more likely than other Americans surveyed to hold either a four-year college degree or a postgraduate degree, Dr. Jones said.

[A]nalysts found majority support for anti-discrimination measures for L.G.B.T. people from every major religious group. The strongest support came from Unitarian Universalists (90 percent), Jews (80 percent) and Hindus (79 percent). Seventy percent of Mormons, 60 percent of Muslims and 54 percent of white evangelical Protestants were also in favor.

Educational Levels and Denomination - Biblical Literalism or Low IQ: Which Came First?

I've looked at this issue before, but it is worth keeping in mind that educational level and belief in Bible inerrancy are inversely related.  The lower the level of education, the higher the belief in the Bible as the inerrant word of God by denomination as shown in the chart above.   By extension, this means that arguably, the fundamentalist base of the GOP holds similarly low levels of education.  Here are highlights from Discover Magazine:

As I observed the “truth” which I had extracted out of the data is rather banal; I doubt it surprised anyone that a “fundamentalist” attitude toward religious scripture tends to be associated with low cognitive ability. The correlation here is probably not one of simple causality in either direction. It seems the most plausible model is one which notes that various denominations tend to have particular socioeconomic profiles which shape a general cultural outlook. In the American South this was made most explicit, with a rank order of status from Episcopalians, to Presbyterians, to Methodists, to Baptists, and finally on down to marginal sectarians.

What I think is going on is simply what we might term the Wisdom of the Crowds; people conform to the social and religious group which they identify with. Biblical literalism flourishes because most people trust pastors and parents who preach it. Similarly, a more metaphorical reading flourishes because authorities in other denominations reject fundamentalism.

Mainline Protestant denominations and Roman Catholicism has relatively high educational standards for its clergy and theological professionals. At the other end of the spectrum many evangelical Protestant sects have no such requirement. The Assemblies of God is a good example of this phenomenon, in this sect higher educational experience can even be perceived as corrupting.