The Global Shift in Attitudes toward Homosexuality

This chapter broadens the scope of the book outside the United States and shows that advances in support for gay rights have been broader than previously thought. Using the World and European Values Survey, which have surveyed attitudes involving homosexuality since the 1980s, the chapter shows that on nearly every continent, there are countries whose attitudes have changed similarly to the United States. The chapter then shows that the major factors which divide countries that have seen change from those than have not are GDP and the size and freedom of each country’s media system. Countries with free and pervasive media, which allowed for the success of ACT-UP, saw attitude change. Those without free media or with little media infrastructure still harbour pervasive anti-gay attitudes. Tentative results on how political party systems effect gay rights support are also presented.

Coming Out, Entertainment Television, and the Youth Revolt

This chapter begins by describing the dramatic increase in direct contact of the American public with LGBTQ people documented using polling data. Trends in depictions of LGBTQ people on television and film are outlined, which mirror the expansion of direct contact with LGBTQs. These two factors---direct contact and meditated contact---are processed in similar ways psychologically according to affective liberalization. Both are predicted to be more effective at attitude change among younger people. The theory is then empirically tested using four different expansive cross-time public opinion datasets. All four analyses of the data-sets come to same conclusion, contact with LGBTQs (mediated and interpersonal) explains all the distinctive features of attitude change---its large magnitude, its timing, its broadness across specific gay rights issues, and its concentration among the millennial generation.

A Transformed Society

The introductory chapter first outlines the basic puzzle that the book will focus on explaining: Why have mass attitudes involving lesbians and gays changed so radically since the early 1990s when public opinion research has shown that the public’s views on most issues are generally stable? The contours of attitude change on LGBT rights issues across time are then surveyed. The central theory of the book---Affective Liberalization---is then described. Lastly, the primary distinctive features of the book, including its emphasis on LGBTQ people as a primary mover of social change, is discussed. The chapter ends with a brief summary of the book.

Social Change in Liberal Democracies

In this concluding chapter, the general conclusions that can be draw from this study are stated. After a brief recap of the historical narrative that has formed the core of this book, what these findings mean for the future trajectory of LGBTQ rights support in the United States are discussed. The chapter then discusses what the findings means for LGBTQ rights activists in the U.S. and other Western nations and provides some potential guidance for sexual minority activists outside of Liberal Democracies. Lastly, given that the process of Affective Liberalization results from (mostly) subconscious processes, rather than an active, deliberative re-evaluation of prior beliefs, what the findings of this study mean for democracy more generally are discussed.

Understanding Affective Liberalization

This chapter both summarizes the current social science theories behind attitude change on lesbian and gay issues and develops the theory of affective liberalization from new research findings in social and political psychology. Demographic theories of attitude change, value-framing theory, issue evolution, elite-led theories of change, and attribution theory are all discussed and found to provide only a partial explanation for change. Affective liberalization is then derived by combining current research in intergroup contact theory with dual process models of decision making. The theory argues that contact primarily acts on the subconscious attitudes that the public holds towards lesbians and gays and explains all the distinctive features of attitudinal change including its durability, broadness, and concentration among young people. The chapter closes with a brief discussion of issues unique to the challenge of analysing change in mass opinion over time.

The Capture of the Democratic Party and the Clinton Victory

This chapter examines how the LGBTQ movement effectively moved the Democratic Party from opposition to LGBTQ rights to ardent supporters. Immediately after the development of LGBTQ urban enclaves discussed in the last chapter, liberal candidates for office began to support gay rights in order to secure votes and activist support for their campaigns. The liberal and urban wings of the party slowly embraced gay rights, but little change occurred among suburban and rural Democratic office holders until ACT-UP hit its peak years and broad media coverage of LGBTQ issues began in the early 1990s. One rural Democrat to support lesbian and gay rights in exchange for votes and campaign resources was Bill Clinton. Clinton’s 1992 campaign and the 1993 gay-in-the-military debate caused news coverage of LGBTQ issues to peak. Although most academics consider this to be when the Democratic party became supportive of gay rights, data analysis in this chapter shows that the party did not become uniformly supportive until after the mass public shifted more liberal on lesbian and gay rights in the later half of the 1990s.

The Persistence of Political Conflict over Gay Rights

Upwards of 80% of all Americans know LGBTQ people and those that do not likely see them on television. If these are the root causes of LGBTQ rights support, then why have gay rights advanced so little in Congress and the States? The explanation comes from the theory of motivated reasoning---those with a strongly held political ideology will resist attitudinal change if it contradicts that ideology. I show that strong conservatives are largely immune to the contact effects demonstrated in the last chapter and present an experiment that shows that exposure to Ellen DeGeneres, a lesbian comedienne, can lower support for gay rights among political conservatives if she is presented in context that makes politics and political ideology more salient for people. For the strongest ideologues, exposure to LGBTQs polarizes instead of liberalizes attitudes. Since most Republican policy-makers are strong conservatives, this explains why public policy now lags public opinion on LGBTQ rights.

Issue Evolution?

Chapter 5 begins the book’s examination of mass opinion change by first looking at the effects of Clinton’s endorsement of gay rights in 1992 and the 1993 gays-in-the-military debate. Using the American National Election Study, a small movement of Democrats in the public appear to have shifted more liberal on gay rights in 1992, but the magnitude of the effect was small. Likewise, the 1993 gays-in-the-military debate only resulted in polarization along political lines, not liberalization. However, declining fear of AIDS in the mid-1990s appear to have caused some attitude change. This leads to the conclusion that media coverage of gay rights in 1992 and 1993 only moved public opinion in a relatively minor fashion.

The Spread and Intensification of Gay and Lesbian Identities

The historical narrative of the book starts in this chapter through a recap of the primary events in LGBTQ movement history in the United States leading up to the 1990s. The origin of the concept of ‘homosexuals’ in the medical research of the late 1890s, the firing of lesbians and gays during the Cold War for fears of communist association, the founding of Mattachine society, the development of distinctive lesbian and gay subcultures and urban communities in the 1970s, and the rise of AIDS and the LGBTQ community’s response in the form of ACT-UP in the 1980s are all discussed. ACT-UP’s response to the crisis proved to decisive turning-point in LGBTQ history. The chapter ends by presenting data showing that, by targeting the national news media, ACT-UP normalized media coverage of AIDS and LGBTQ issues, leading to increases in coming out.