The Power of Equality? Polarization and Collective Mis-representation on Gay Rights in Congress, 1989–2019

2020 ◽  
pp. 106591292095349
Author(s):  
Benjamin G. Bishin ◽  
Justin Freebourn ◽  
Paul Teten
Keyword(s):  
Gay Rights ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Hate Crimes ◽  
Executive Order ◽  
Supreme Court Ruling ◽  
Collective Representation ◽  
Gays And Lesbians ◽  
Mass Opinion ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent application of employment protections to gays and lesbians in Bostock v. Clayton County highlights the striking absence of policy produced by the U.S. Congress despite two decades of increased public support for gay rights. With the notable exceptions of allowing gays and lesbians to serve in the military, and passing hate crimes legislation, every other federal policy advancing gay rights over the last three decades has been the product of a Supreme Court ruling or Executive Order. To better understand the reasons for this inaction, we examine the changing preferences of members of Congress on LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) issues. Examining scores from the Human Rights Campaign from 1989 to 2019, we find a striking polarization by the parties on LGBTQ issues, as Democrats have become much more supportive and Republicans even more opposed to gay rights. This change has been driven not by gerrymandering, mass opinion polarization, or elite backlash, but among Republicans by a mix of both conversion and replacement, and among Democrats primarily of replacement of more moderate members. The result is a striking lack of collective representation that leaves members of the LGBTQ community at risk to the whims of presidents and jurists.

The Rainbow after the Storm

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Rosenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Coming Out ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Marriage Equality ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Gay Couples ◽  
Gays And Lesbians ◽  
The U.S

The Rainbow after the Storm tells the story of the rapid liberalization of attitudes toward gay rights that made same-sex marriage the law of the U.S. sooner than almost anyone thought was possible. The book explains how and why public opinion toward gay rights liberalized so much, while most other public attitudes have remained relatively stable. The book explores the roles of a variety of actors in this drama. Social science research helped to shift elite opinion in ways that reduced the persecution of gays and lesbians. Gays and lesbians by the hundreds of thousands responded to a less repressive environment by coming out of the closet. Straight people started to know the gay and lesbian people in their lives, and their view of gay rights shifted accordingly. Same-sex couples embarked on years-long legal struggles to try to force states to recognize their marriages. In courtrooms across the U.S. social scientists behind a new consensus about the normalcy of gay couples and the health of their children won victories over fringe scholars promoting discredited antigay views. In a few short years marriage equality, which had once seemed totally unrealistic, became realistic. And then almost as soon as it was realistic, marriage equality became a reality.

Coming Out of the Closet and Its Influence, 1985–2013

2021 ◽  
pp. 102-114
Author(s):  
Michael J. Rosenfeld
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Family Member ◽  
Coming Out ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
Science Data ◽  
Social Science Data ◽  
Gays And Lesbians ◽  
First Time ◽  
The U.S

Chapter 7 provides a variety of social science data analysis to show that contact between gays and lesbians and their straight family and friends was responsible for the dramatic liberalization of attitudes toward gay rights in the U.S. When Americans were asked why they became more supportive of marriage equality, they overwhelmingly explained that having a gay friend or family member helped them see the issue more positively. Having a gay friend was influential even to people who were not predisposed to support gay rights. Data show that gays and lesbians in the U.S. were coming out of the closet for the first time in the 1990s, and the 1990s is also when American attitudes toward gay rights started to liberalize.

Issue Evolution?

2018 ◽  
pp. 125-147
Author(s):  
Jeremiah J. Garretson
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Attitude Change ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
Election Study ◽  
The Public ◽  
National Election Study ◽  
Gays In The Military ◽  
Mass Opinion ◽  
The Military

Chapter 5 begins the book’s examination of mass opinion change by first looking at the effects of Clinton’s endorsement of gay rights in 1992 and the 1993 gays-in-the-military debate. Using the American National Election Study, a small movement of Democrats in the public appear to have shifted more liberal on gay rights in 1992, but the magnitude of the effect was small. Likewise, the 1993 gays-in-the-military debate only resulted in polarization along political lines, not liberalization. However, declining fear of AIDS in the mid-1990s appear to have caused some attitude change. This leads to the conclusion that media coverage of gay rights in 1992 and 1993 only moved public opinion in a relatively minor fashion.

Finding the Path to Attitude Change on Transgender Rights

2020 ◽  
pp. 54-82
Author(s):  
Michelson and
Keyword(s):  
Attitude Change ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Transgender People ◽  
Public Issues ◽  
The Core ◽  
Access Rights ◽  
The Military ◽  
The U.S

Access to public restrooms and transgender people serving openly in the U.S. military are the two most visible public issues related to transgender rights in recent American history. This chapter describes several randomized public opinion experiments testing how to increase public support for those policies. One experiment finds that framing transgender bathroom access as about freedom or safety does little to increase support for transgender bathroom access rights; although consistent with opposition advertising campaigns, those frames can generate significant decreases in support. Elite cues and framing of the military service issue as about equality and integrity show more promise in increasing support for transgender rights. The studies in this chapter serve as the core of Identity Reassurance Theory and its central tenets about bolstering self-esteem and finding the optimal messaging strategy to mitigate emotional reactions.

Questions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James L. Gibson ◽  
Michael J. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Two Factors ◽  
The U.S

We have investigated the differences in support for the U.S. Supreme Court among black, Hispanic, and white Americans, catalogued the variation in African Americans’ group attachments and experiences with legal authorities, and examined how those latter two factors shape individuals’ support for the U.S. Supreme Court, that Court’s decisions, and for their local legal system. We take this opportunity to weave our findings together, taking stock of what we have learned from our analyses and what seem like fruitful paths for future research. In the process, we revisit Positivity Theory. We present a modified version of the theory that we hope will guide future inquiry on public support for courts, both in the United States and abroad.

Role Model or Role Expansion? Popular Perceptions of the Military in Tunisia

2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292110014
Author(s):  
Holger Albrecht ◽  
Michael Bufano ◽  
Kevin Koehler
Keyword(s):  
Role Model ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Democratic Consolidation ◽  
Transition To Democracy ◽  
Emerging Democracies ◽  
Civil Military Relations ◽  
Role Expansion ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Military Relations ◽  
The Military

This article introduces a theory on military role expansion in emerging democracies and poses a broad question: who wants the military to adopt which role in society and politics? Drawing on an original, nationally representative survey conducted in Tunisia, the article explores people’s preferences for the military to remain a security provider or serve in government and contribute to policing protests. Findings reveal that public support for military role expansion is substantial and varies across political cleavages. We test hypotheses to account for cleavages driven by the country’s authoritarian past versus partisan divides during Tunisia’s transition to democracy. Findings indicate that popular support for military role expansion is driven by anti-system sentiments prevalent in contemporary Tunisian politics: while voters prefer the military as a role model for security provision, non-voters support its enhanced role in politics. These observations have ample implications for the research programs on civil–military relations and the dynamics of democratic consolidation. Tunisia’s experience warrants greater attention to anti-system attitudes caused by people’s disillusionment with democratic procedures. In turn, authoritarian legacies do not appear to play a prominent role during such challenging transitions toward democratic consolidation.

The Opinion-Mobilizing Effect of Social Protest against Police Violence: Evidence from the 2020 George Floyd Protests

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
TYLER T. RENY ◽  
BENJAMIN J. NEWMAN
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Cross Sections ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Social Protest ◽  
Large Dataset ◽  
Police Violence ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
Mass Opinion ◽  
The U.S

Does social protest following the police killing of unarmed Black civilians have a widespread “opinion-mobilizing” effect against the police? Or, does the racialized nature of these events polarize mass opinion based on standing racial and political orientations? To answer these questions, we use a large dataset comprised of weekly cross sections of the American public and employ a regression discontinuity in time (RDiT) approach leveraging the random timing of the police killing of George Floyd and ensuing nationwide protests. We find that the Floyd protests swiftly decreased favorability toward the police and increased perceived anti-Black discrimination among low-prejudice and politically liberal Americans. However, attitudes among high-prejudice and politically conservative Americans either remained unchanged or evinced only small and ephemeral shifts. Our evidence suggests that the Floyd protests served to further racialize and politicize attitudes within the domain of race and law enforcement in the U.S.

Reliability of Regulating Artificial Intelligence to Restrain Cartelization: A Libertarian Approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matin Pedram
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Building Block ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Market Process ◽  
Executive Order ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Government Interference ◽  
The Common ◽  
The U.S

Abstract Competition is building block of any successful economy, while a cartelized economy is against the common good of society. Nowadays, developing artificial intelligence (AI) and its plausibility to foster cartels persuade governments to revitalize their interference in the market and implement new regulations to tackle AI implications. In this sense, as pooling of technologies might enable cartels to impose high prices and violate consumers’ rights, it should be restricted. By contrast, in the libertarian approach, cartels’ impacts are defined by government interference in the market. Accordingly, it is irrational to rely on a monopolized power called government to equilibrate a cartelized market. This article discusses that AI is a part of the market process that should be respected, and a restrictive or protective approach such as the U.S. government Executive Order 13859 is not in line with libertarian thought and can be a ladder to escalate the cartelistic behaviors.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document