Poll: Most favor gays serving openly

NBC News reports: As opponents of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy prepare a final push for repeal during Congress’s lame duck session, polling shows that they’ve got the wind of public opinion at their backs.

A new survey out yesterday from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life shows that 58 percent of Americans favor allowing gay and lesbian members of the military to serve openly. Less than a third of respondents (27 percent) say that gays and lesbians should not be permitted to serve openly in the Armed Forces.

Democrats and independents favor letting gays serve openly in the military by wide margins, but Republicans remain divided on the question. About 40 percent say that gays should be permitted to serve openly, while 44 percent say they should not.

National approval for openly gay service members is mirrored in almost every religious and age group, according to the poll.

Over half of Catholics and non-evangelical Protestants say that gays should be allowed to serve openly. Only white evangelicals generally oppose that policy (34 percent favor open service; 48 percent oppose.)

Support for allowing gays to serve openly is still highest among young Americans, with almost 70 percent of those 18-29 favoring the proposal. But only 44 percent of Americans over 65 agree with their younger counterparts.

A Pentagon report about the potential effects of repealing the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law will be released today, and the Senate Armed Services Committee is scheduled to hold hearings on the issue Thursday and Friday.

Most Republicans are withholding support for repeal until after reviewing the Pentagon findings. But some leading GOP members of the Armed Services panel, including ranking member John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have said that the report is fundamentally flawed in its approach.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sunny von Bulow dies after 28 years in coma

Image
After spending nearly 28 years in an irreversible coma, heiress and socialite Martha "Sunny" von Bulow died Saturday in a New York nursing home, according to a family statement. She was 76. Von Bulow was subject of one of the nation's most sensational criminal cases during the 1980s. Her husband, Claus, was accused of trying to kill her with an overdose of insulin, which prosecutors alleged sent her into the coma. He was convicted of making two attempts on her life, but the conviction was overturned on appeal. He was acquitted in a second trial. His retrial in 1985 received national attention. (Via CNN )
Read more

Ric Alonso resigns from pageant association after porn revelation

Image
Kevin Hogan wasn't the only person this week ambushed out of a job for his participation in the gay adult film industry. FOX News reports : Ric Alonso and his partner of 21 years, Ernie Koneck, have both been both prominent power players in the Southern California Scholarship Association — an incorporated not-for-profit association — which produces the Miss Hollywood pageant, an official preliminary to Miss California, and a feeder to Miss America. Alonso is listed as the first “major sponsor” for 2011 scholarship donations, while partner Koneck has been the pageantry point of contact and is featured in photographs alongside the smiling young sashed pageant contestants. On Tuesday, Alonso was exposed by RadarOnline as adult film actor and producer "Jake Cruise". FOX News adds: Following the revelation, Koneck announced his resignation Tuesday as Executive Director of the Southern California Scholarship Association, and said Alonso was in no way involved in the Miss Holl
Read more

Make Jerry Curl Great Again

Image
You can't consider yourself a writer if you don't write. In recent years, I have probably said those words to myself so often that they could be considered a mantra; a mantra that I don't want to embody but one that is nonetheless true. I don't write anymore. I don't write to faraway friends. I don't write to remember. I don't write for pleasure. I don't write for release. I don't even Tweet. At a recent job interview (for another job I didn't really want), I was asked what I would do for a living if I could do anything. Without even thinking about it, I said I would be a writer. But that was a stock answer. It's the answer I've always given to that question. But this time the answer felt phony. It felt forced. It didn't feel like me anymore. The real, ugly, scary truth is that I don't know if I still got the right stuff to be the writer I wanted to be. While I have always questioned the validity of my own voice (my
Read more