Resistance/backlash/response to Supreme Court opinions

[John Nagle]

The last thing I would want to suggest is that the rightness or wrongness
of an issue should be decided by a poll, but to the extent that we've been
considering competing but unsupported claims about popular views toward
homosexuality, the latest Gallup poll on the subject can be found at
http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr990301b.asp.  Conducted in March
1999, it concluded that 50% of those surveyed believed that homosexual
relations should be legal while 43% did not; that 83%believed that gays
should have equal job opportunities while 13% did not; that 44% believed
that upbringing or environment determines homosexuality while 34% believed
that it is something one is born with; that support for gays or lesbians in
various jobs varied from 54% (clergy) to 90% (salespersons); and perhaps
most importantly for the suggestions of some of the prior assertions on
this list, 50% believe that homosexuality should be considered an
appropriate lifestyle while 46% do not.  The general impression I get from
these statistics is that there is widespread acceptance of gays being
allowed to participate equally in society, but profound differences about
the appropriateness of  homosexuality itself.


John Copeland Nagle
Associate Professor
Notre Dame Law School
Notre Dame, IN 46556
(219) 631-9407
(219) 631-4197 (fax)