Does Your Mama Know?: 4 in 10 Americans Have Gay Family/Friend

The Pew Research Center just released a new study showing 4 in 10 people in America has a gay or lesbian family member or close friend.

So you’re asking “so what?”

Look children. This blog can’t be all shits and giggles. Sometimes I gotta give you the news.

From Pew:

In the past four decades, growing numbers of gays have come out of the closet and into the mainstream of American life. As a consequence, 4-in-10 Americans now report that some of their close friends or family members are gays or lesbians, according to a recent national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

About half of all women, young people, college graduates, political liberals and mainline Protestants say that someone close to them is gay, the survey found. But significantly fewer men, conservative Republicans and older Americans report that a good friend or family member is homosexual.

An analysis of survey results suggests that familiarity is closely linked to tolerance. People who have a close gay friend or family member are more likely to support gay marriage and they are also significantly less likely to favor allowing schools to fire gay teachers than are those with little or no personal contact with gays, the poll found.

What was interesting to me also was that the numbers seemed to be about the same across race, geographic region, and religion. The biggest disparities were across age, and religious affiliation–younger heteros knew more queers (excuse me. GAYS and LESBIANS), and Conservatives knew fewer.