New survey suggests decline has strong correlation between Christian nationalism and opposition to inclusive policies

Public support for same-sex marriage and nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ Americans has fallen, even as the overall share remains high, according to new findings by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute.

Broad majorities of Americans, regardless of political party or faith, continue to support LGBTQ+ rights and protections, the analysis found. But after years of rising public support, the decline is notable, said Melissa Deckman, CEO of the PRRI.

The survey analyzed Americans’ attitudes toward LGBTQ+ rights across three policies: same-sex marriage, nondiscrimination protections and religion-based service refusals. It found support for all three measures had softened for the first time since the PRRI began tracking views of the issues nearly a decade ago.

While the “vast majority of Americans continue to endorse protections for LGBTQ Americans”, Deckman said the results may serve as a “warning sign” for those working to safeguard the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans amid a conservative legislative and legal effort to erode them.

  • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    On top of a political crisis this is an empathy one too, IMHO.

    Very much so. And maybe the crisis of empathy is the deeper, more critical problem.

    I have noticed that, right alongside the attacks against LGBTQIA+ folks, there has been an overt effort to normalize both apathy AND the “disorders of conscience” (sociopathy, narcissism, etc) to try to repaint those lacking conscience and guilt as just “different” instead of the amoral predators among prey, who believe conscience is for the weak, that they are.

    There was an article in the NY Times just a couple weeks ago doing that, and it wasn’t the first. “Oh, sociopaths aren’t that terrible, just different,” that kind of shit, addressing the actual damage they do and the lives they leave wrecked in language more suited to a statistics report.

    The first paragraph:

    Sociopaths are modern-day boogeymen, and the word “sociopath” is casually tossed around to describe the worst, most amoral among us. But they are not boogeymen; they are real people and, according to Patric Gagne, widely misunderstood. Gagne wrote “Sociopath,” her buzzy forthcoming memoir, to try to correct some of those misunderstandings and provide a fuller picture of sociopathy, which is now more frequently referred to as antisocial personality disorder. As a child, Gagne found herself compelled toward violent outbursts in an effort to try to compensate for the emotional apathy that was her default. As she got older, those compulsive behaviors turned into criminal ones like trespassing and theft.

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/25/magazine/patric-gagne-interview.html