When I joined the Out Front Blog a year and a half ago, the debate on gay marriage was growing and my colleagues and I took appropriate opportunities to review the communications of both sides. During that same time too, I made it a point to look also to our future and made an impassioned commitment to cover LGBT youth and students, as they are our future Out Front communicators and leaders.
I am happy today to be covering a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education that showed freshman college students who chose the politically "far right" label are much more supportive of same-sex marriage than than the conservative Republican base nationwide. The following results come from the University of California at Los Angeles' Higher Education Research Institute:
- 24 percent of the most conservative college students support same-sex marriage, as opposed to only 14 percent of conservative Republicans who feel the same (this finding is from the 2009 Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life's study)
- Support is growing. 65 percent of college freshmen last fall supported same-sex nuptials, up from 56 percent in 2000
- Support grows during college, too. In the 2004 study, 57 percent of students entering college supported same-sex marriage and grew to 69 percent in support by graduation
- Since the study's origin in 1997, support for gay marriage has risen 21 points among liberal students, 16 percent among moderates and 2 percent for those on the far right
- 72 percent of women and 57 percent of men entering college support same-sex marriage, compared with 43 percent of women and 34 percent of men nationally (Pew study)
- 69 percent of Hispanic, 65 percent of white and 53 percent of black freshmen support marriage equality, with lower numbers in that same order nationally (Pew study)
- At least 87 percent of Jews, Buddhists or those students not subscribing to any religion favor marriage equality, followed by 66 percent of Catholic college freshmen and 58 percent of Muslims. Most Protestant students of varying denominations fell between 50-75 percent. Nationally, 27 percent of Protestants and 45 percent of Catholics support legal marriage equality
This study is good news, as agreed by Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, who stated in the article, " Young people who know gay people, talk with them, and examine why marriage matters in the lives of real people move in support." It's something I've seen manifested in my own experiences time and time again -- whether at home, work or community organizations. That's why we're continually reminding our readers to repeatedly share their life with any and everyone -- it's this communication that brings about change.
This article, though, should not signal LGBT communicators and individuals to kick up their heels. As the balanced article shares, Glenn Stanton, director of family formation studies at Focus on the Family said, "Young people tend to be more liberal or progressive. It's a softer kind of conviction, not well formed or articulated in their minds."
If Stanton's belief is true, which it may be in part, this is a signal that while communicating for equality now is essential, so is sharing factual and powerful information with the next generation of allies and LGBT individuals in college. Our message should be direct, transparent and accompanied with real accounts of same-sex marriages -- those that last, those that were taken away, and those that can't.
Call them Millennials, Generation Y or whatever. I call them Generation Hope.
What are your thoughts on this study?











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