Survey shows gays ‘ignorant’ of basic rights issues

From the New York Blade:



http://www.nyblade.com/thelatest/thelatest.cfm?blog_id=18057

I guess I'm not surprised by this. I've had arguments with people - both straight and gay - who insist that federal law protects LGBT people. It's sad that the right wing has spread so much misinformation ... all in an attempt to portray us as wanting "special rights."

went "Jay walking". No suprise here

but that's because I just moved to a new state and I haven't gotten caught up on all the rules here yet. :)

but maybe you could make it a bit bigger so it is easier to read.

so I could shrink down one of the higher-res ones to a decent size. :)

and I am not surprised by the results. I think the media may have something to do with how ignorant all of us are about basic rights issues. I hope they come up with four basic questions to ask the non-gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people so we can see how we do.

Here are the four questions in case you are curious:

The poll by City University of New York’s Hunter College asked whether same-sex marriages were legal in the respondent’s state, if the U.S. Constitution bans same-sex marriage, whether gays can serve openly in the U.S. military and if there’s a federal law barring the firing of workers based on their sexual orientation.

Aren't we smart enough to get ENDA and marriage rights at the same time as DADT? Also, I really think that leaving out transgender rights is wrong fundamentally because, well, it's wrong, but also because if you leave those out, then none of the other rights will matter--it'll be too easy to argue that someone wasn't fired for being gay, but for behavior that is inappropriate to ones gender. Pretty screwed up in the 21st century in the "bastion of freedom" that we claim to be.

Don't think too much about this poll, it is almost meaningless.

and they can begin to understand, and in turn explain it to their others. It's a difficult thing to look past one's own hardships to understand the hardships of another. And we have to understand our own before we can expect anyone to sympathize.

I spoke with a conservative colleague at work the other day who said I finally convinced him, that our treatment is nowhere near equal. We have all the same challenges in life, in raising children, in worrying about employment, mortgage payments, health care, retirement. But the differences far outweigh the similarities. When I told him that domestic partner health insurance is much more expensive to me than spousal benefits are to him, and that I have to pay taxes on the employer portion of the benefit also, and when I explained that my retirement benefit on my death would be paid out as a taxable lump sum to my partner, and add up to only a fraction of what his wife would receive, and that my partner would get NOTHING from my social security benefit, a light finally went on for him.

He said that he was embarrassed not to have actually realized it before. He's a smart guy too, but had just never given it much thought. We have a big challenge in front of us, and we need to be armed with knowledge about our own rights before we can expect everyone else to understand what we don't have.