New CNN Poll: 57% of Americans Know Someone Gay

A new CNN poll helps under score how living out of the closet makes a huge impact on LGBT acceptance and may, in fact, be one of the biggest reasons for the rapid change in attitudes towards gay marriage.  Outside of Christofascists circles, if one knows someone gay or has a gay family member, the chances are high that one will also support gay marriage.  It's more bad news for the professional Christian crowd and those who have been enriching themselves by peddling anti-gay animus.  Here are highlights on the poll findings:

One day before the Supreme Court hears a high profile case on same-sex marriage, a new national poll indicates that the percentage of Americans who say they have a family member or close friend who is gay or lesbian is on the rise. And that increase matches a jump in the percent of the public who support legal same-sex marriages. According to a CNN/ORC International survey, 57% say they have a family member or close friend who is gay or lesbian, up 12 points from 2007.

"The number of Americans who support same-sex marriage has risen by almost the same amount in that time - from 40% in 2007 to 53% today - strongly suggesting that the rise in support for gay marriage is due in part to the rising number of Americans who have become aware that someone close to them is gay," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

According to the poll, people who say they know someone who is gay or lesbian are more likely to be younger and more likely to have attended college, with women more likely to say that than men. And not surprisingly, support for gay marriage is highest among women, college educated Americans, and the young. 

"Attitudes toward homosexuality are the result of many complex, interrelated factors. Past polling, for example, has also shown that support for gay marriage has risen during a time when a growing number of Americans believe that homosexuality is something a person is born with. But years of polling suggests that the growing number of Americans who know someone who is gay has contributed to an environment in which gay marriage now receives support from a majority of Americans," says Holland.

Whatever the Supreme Court may decide to do in the gay marriage cases, the Christiofascists have seemingly lost this part of the culture war.  Sooner or later gay marriage will be nationwide.

Quote of the Day: When Conservative Refuse to Accept Change

By all accounts since election day earlier this month the data shows that America is changing rapidly both racially and socially.  Yet the far right and the Republican Party refuse to see this objective reality.  Instead, if they admit that they face a problem at all, they state in obvious delusion that they merely need to "improve their messaging" or find the right non-white face to represent they party.  They simply will not grasp the reality it's their message and their world view that have been rejected and that until those change, it is insanity to expect a different result in future elections.  A post by David Simon sums up the situation well.  Here are excerpts:

[The country is changing. And this may be the last election in which anyone but a fool tries to play — on a national level, at least — the cards of racial exclusion, of immigrant fear, of the patronization of women and hegemony over their bodies, of self-righteous discrimination against homosexuals. Some in the Republican party and among the teabagged fringe will continue to play such losing hands for some time to come; this shit worked well in its day and distracted many from addressing any of our essential national issues. But again, if they play that weak-ass game past this point, they are fools.

America is different now, more so with every election cycle. Ronald Reagan won his mandate in an America in which 89 percent of the voters were white. That number is down to 72 percent and falling. Fifty thousand new Latino citizens achieve the voting age every month. America will soon belong to the men and women — white and black and Latino and Asian, Christian and Jew and Muslim and atheist, gay and straight — who can walk into a room and accept with real comfort the sensation that they are in a world of certain difference, that there are no real majorities, only pluralities and coalitions. The America in which it was otherwise is dying, thank god, and those who relied on entitlement and division to command power will either be obliged to accept the changes, or retreat to the gated communities from which they wish to wax nostalgic and brood on political irrelevance.

[U]nless these white guys who have peddled “normal” for so long — normal as in racial majority, normal as in religious majority, normal as in sexual orientation — unless they have a hard moment of self-reflection and self-awareness, well, it [a presidential election] will not be this close again.

For lost and fretful white men, unwilling to accept the terms of a new America, Congress is the last barricade against practical and inevitable change. But there, too, the demographic inevitabilities are all in play. All the gerrymandering in this world won’t make those other Americans, those different Americans, go away. And the tyranny of minority and lack of compromise that you employ to thwart progress now will likely breed an equal contempt when the demographics do indeed provide supermajorities.

Hard times are still to come for all of us. Rear guard actions will be fought at every political crossroad. But make no mistake: Change is a motherfucker when you run from it. And right now, the conservative movement in America is fleeing from dramatic change that is certain and immutable.

This election marks a moment in which the racial and social hierarchy of America is upended forever. No longer will it mean more politically to be a white male than to be anything else. Evolve, or don’t. Swallow your resentments, or don’t. But the votes are going to be counted, more of them with each election. Arizona will soon be in play. And in a few cycles, even Texas.

And now, normal isn’t white or straight or Christian. There is no normal. That word, too, means less with every moment. And those who continue to argue for such retrograde notions as a political reality will become less germane and more ridiculous with every passing year.

What Simon summarizes needless to say frightens the Hell out of those who have built political and religious careers based on the stigmatization of others based on the color of their skin, who they love, and/or where they were born.  Their house of cards alternate reality is about to come crashing down and, if they are smart - perhaps a huge if - they will embrace change.

How Santorum May Have Sabotaged Romney

As many have celebrated the exodus of Rick "Frothy Mix" Santorum from the GOP presidential clown car, it's important to recognize the role Santorum may have played in hastening the GOP's long term suicide. Through his often batshit crazy utterances and religious extremist positions, Santorum forced Mitt Romney to embrace positions that will likely continue to haunt him. In addition, in his rush to move to the right to counter Santorum, Romney displayed that he likely has no core beliefs other than saying whatever he deems most expedient at the given moment. A op-ed column in the Washington Post looks at this phenomenon and the damage Santorum may have caused to both Romney and the GOP brand. Here are excerpts:

Rick Santorum’s departure from the presidential race could not come soon enough for Mitt Romney. In proving himself more tenacious than anyone predicted, Santorum dramatized one of Romney’s major problems, created another and forced the now-inevitable Republican nominee into a strategic dilemma.

Republicans may condemn class warfare, but their primaries turned into a class struggle. Romney performed best among voters with high incomes, and he was consistently weaker with the white working class, . . .

At the same time, Santorum’s strength among evangelical Christians pressured Romney to toughen his positions even as the Republican Party as a whole, at both the state and national levels, has pushed policies on contraception and abortion that have alienated many women, particularly the college-educated.

This is Romney’s other problem: Among college-educated white men, Romney had a healthy 57 percent to 39 percent lead over President Obama in the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll. But among college-educated white women, Obama led Romney by 60 percent to 40 percent. This netted to a rather astounding 38-point gender gap, compared with a net 27-point gap among all white voters.

Thus the box the primaries built for Romney: He must simultaneously court evangelical Christians and working-class voters who have eluded him so far and also reassure socially moderate women higher up the class ladder who, for now, are providing Obama with decisive margins. It’s not easy to do both. . . . . if he concentrates on winning back upscale women, who now favor Obama by even larger margins than they gave him in 2008, Romney will only aggravate his enthusiasm problem on the right.

Romney’s predicament is Obama’s opportunity. The president is moving aggressively to take advantage of the class opening afforded him by the candidate of “a couple of Cadillacs,” “I like being able to fire people” and “corporations are people, my friend.” In a series of speeches in Florida the day Santorum withdrew, Obama hit repeatedly on the twin themes of fairness and opportunity.

Most conservatives seem oblivious to the party’s working-class problem, but not all. Henry Olsen, a vice president at the American Enterprise Institute . . . . sees Obama’s echoes of Bill Clinton’s pledges to help those who “work hard and play by the rules” as shrewd politics aimed at rehabilitating his standing with such Americans.

Obama, Olsen said, can lose the white working class “by a substantial margin” and still win because of his strength among African Americans, Latinos and well-educated women.

Yes, it’s still early. Renewed economic jitters in Europe could spoil a fragile U.S. recovery. But for now, Romney finds himself in a political maze with no obvious path out. He’s there partly because of his own mistakes, but he was also led to this point because of the unlikely strength of Rick Santorum’s challenge.

The Republican Party And Women

Latinos are not the only segment of voters that the GOP seems bound and determined to alienate as it panders to the nastiest elements of the Christianist and Kool-Aid drinker GOP base. One of the other targets of GOP venom has been women. Gays, of course, are always enemy No. 1 in the eyes of the GOP/Christofacsists. NPR has a piece that looks at the impact of the GOP's war on women and contraception. Yes, some in the GOP claim that women are not being driven away from the GOP, but one has to wonder if these folks have ventured outside of the Christianist/Tea Party bubble. Here are some highlights:

It's not that the rhetoric coming out of the Republican presidential campaign is suddenly going to make women around the country start voting Democratic. Women, for the most part, do prefer Democratic candidates, and have in presidential races at least since 1992. Four years ago, women preferred Barack Obama over John McCain by some 13 percentage points (the gap was 41 points among single women). But as the conversation has gone from abortion to contraception — which is, um, virgin territory in presidential campaigns — anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that it is pushing female voters even further away from the GOP.

And in the process it may have damaged the national ticket aspirations of Bob McDonnell, the governor of Virginia thought to be a rising star in the GOP. Republicans in the Virginia General Assembly were pushing legislation that would have required a woman to have an ultrasound probe inserted into her vagina prior to undergoing an abortion, a procedure pushed by anti-abortion legislators in an effort to make a woman think twice before terminating her pregnancy.

As for Limbaugh, many Republicans insist that he is an entertainer, not a party spokesman, and thus they should not be tarred when he goes off on someone in his broadcasts. But that's a cop-out, writes Steve Kornacki in Salon:

Limbaugh's show is almost entirely about politics, and the themes he stresses invariably echo and influence the themes that Republican politicians across the country emphasize. And Republicans themselves have spent the past two decades promoting the image of Limbaugh as their leader.

Liz Halloran, my NPR colleague, wrote that the irony in all this is that Republicans were making genuine inroads with women, . . . now the GOP, "who so recently saw an opportunity to close the gender gap, may now be watching it widen."

Personally, I have zero sympathy for Republicans who looked at what they thought was short term advantage and ended up instead selling the party's soul and creating a largely lobotomized party base. Rick Santorum's popularity is a testament to the debasing of the Republican party.

Woman Takes Command of Navy Strike Group

With the current controversy over allowing gays to serve openly in the U.S. military, it is important to remember that not so many years ago similar naysayers were pontificating that women in combat roles would destroy the military, lead to all kinds of fraternization and - the horrors - sexual misconduct. Joining in the nay saying were senior military brass and male chauvinists like Jim Webb, now U.S. Senator from Virginia. Not surprisingly, all the dire predictions failed to come to pass and the bigots and chauvinists were proven wrong. The same thing will happen if and when our "fierce advocate" in the White House grows some balls and exercises leadership - something that we've learned is not his strong suit. But getting back to the post headline. For the first time EVER in U.S. military history, a woman is taking command of a Navy Strike Group (formerly called a Battle Group). To understand what a big deal this is, one needs to understand what makes up a Strike Group: a nuclear powered super carrier, an air wing, a destroyer squadron, guided missile cruisers, guided missile destroyers, sometimes one or two submarines, and assorted support ships, including oilers and supply ships. The number of service members in a Strike Groups numbers in the many thousands (the carrier and air wing involve about 5,800 men/women alone). And now a woman, Rear Admiral Nora Tyson (pictured above), will command such a Strike Group. A Strike Group which includes 12 ships plus the super carrier Bush and an air wing. I wish Admiral Tyson the best and hope she makes Jim Webb, other anti-woman elements and nutcases like Phyllis Schlafly who opposes women in the military look like jackass. Here are highlights from the Virginian Pilot:
*
Rear Adm. Nora Tyson will become the first woman to take command of a carrier strike group in a ceremony Thursday aboard the carrier George H.W. Bush at Norfolk Naval Station. Tyson will assume command of Carrier Strike Group 2 from Capt. Jeffrey Hesterman, the acting commander.
*
She has served most recently as executive assistant to Adm. Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations. Roughead will be on hand for the 3:30 p.m. ceremony.
*
The Norfolk-based Bush is America’s newest aircraft carrier. The 10th and final Nimitz-class carrier, it was commissioned Jan. 10, 2009. It is preparing for its maiden deployment in 2011.
*
Tyson will lead a complement of ships and aircraft that includes the cruisers Philippine Sea, Gettysburg, Monterey, and Vella Gulf; the destroyers Bainbridge, James E. Williams, Mahan, Nitze, Mitscher, and Truxtun ; the frigates Carr and Hawes; and Carrier Air Wing 8.

Big L.A. law firms score low on diversity survey

This is an interesting and disappointing story from the Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-diversity11oct11,1,661263.story?ctrack=2&cset=true) concerning diversity, or the lack thereof, in large L.A. law firms. One would almost think that perhaps some of these firms should shift their home offices to this area to better fit with their employment practices. Although, frankly the LA figures would be stellar compared to the reality one sees in just about all larger law firms in this area. For the most part, larger law firms remain bastions of white only partners with a few actually having several female partners. Of course, there are NO openly gay associates that I know of, much less partners. All in all, a sad state of affairs. Here are highlights from the Times story:

Large Los Angeles law firms have poor diversity records, with the numbers of female, black, Latino, Asian and gay partners and associates lagging significantly behind their representation in the city's population, according to a study released Wednesday.The 17 Los Angeles-area firms in the report have three or fewer African American partners; all but one have three or fewer Latino partners, and half have three or fewer Asian American partners, placing the percentage of partners in those ethnic groups at less than 5%. In contrast, 2005 census data show that African Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans constitute 9.7%, 46.8% and 13.1% of the population in Los Angeles County.

Three firms have no African American partners, one has no Latino partners, one has no Asian American partners, and three firms have no publicly declared lesbian or gay partners.

Similar percentages were found in other large metropolitan areas. Women make up less than 25% of the partners at all 74 firms surveyed in New York with 100 or more lawyers, while 27 of those firms have no Latino partner, 25 have no African American partner, and 21 have no Asian American partner.Of 46 firms surveyed in Washington, 17 have no Latino partner, seven have no African American partner, and 13 have no Asian American partner. The picture is somewhat better in the San Francisco Bay Area. Still, only 7 of 31 firms have 25% or more female partners, with the highest figure 32.7%.

Meanwhile, "purists" worry about passage of a less than all inclusive version of ENDA. This data shows that there is a HUGE need to get some version of ENDA, perfect or not, passed ASAP.