Huffington Post writer Janie Velencia was elated to discover that in the most recent WSJ/NBC poll more Americans are excited about or feel comfortable with a gay or lesbian in the White House than an evangelical Christian.
Velencia wrote, “The results point to a cultural shift in perceptions of gay people in recent years. While perspectives on evangelicals remain largely the same, the same survey found in 2006 that only 43 percent of Americans fully accepted the idea of a gay or lesbian presidential candidate, while 53 percent had reservations or were uncomfortable.”
Unfortunately for Velencia, that isn’t exactly the truth.
A closer look at the numbers reveals that more Americans have been accepting of a gay or lesbian in the White House than an evangelical Christian since the first time the WSJ/NBC poll asked this question in 2006.
In 2006, 43 percent of respondents were comfortable with a gay president while 53 percent had reservations. At that same time, 41 percent of respondents were comfortable with an evangelical Christian president while 54 percent had reservations.
These are the numbers Velencia cited, but she ignores the net changes for both acceptance of gays and of evangelicals.
In 2015, acceptance of gays and lesbians in the White House have moved from a net-negative of 10 percent to a positive 24 percent, while evangelicals have increased from a net-negative of 13 percent to a positive 8 percent.
This change by the public likely has less to do with a movement of social liberalism and more to do with an overall acceptance of all people to just live their lives as they see fit.
