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 Group Cohesion without Group Mobilization: The Case of Lesbians, Gays, and Bisexuals Patrick J. Egan Assistant Professor of Politics New York University [email protected] I thank Doug Arnold, Murray Edelman, Andrew Francis, Steven Greene, Donald Haider‐Markel, Gregory Lewis, Karen Long Jusko, Tali Mendelberg, Megan Mullin, Randall Sell, Kenneth Sherrill, John Sides, Rebecca Weitz‐
Shapiro, Josh Tucker, Rick Valelly, and seminar participants at Columbia, NYU, Swarthmore, and the New York chapter of the American Association for Public Opinion Research for conversations and comments. I also acknowledge support from Princeton University’s Center for the Study of Democratic Politics, where I was a visiting scholar in 2006‐07. An earlier version of this paper won the Pi Sigma Alpha award for best paper presented at the 2008 meetings of the Southern Political Science Association. ABSTRACT Despite the absence of the mechanism of intergenerational transmission, social identities that are chosen—rather passed on from parent to offspring—are often associated with distinct sets of attitudes about politics. The conventional wisdom is that the political cohesiveness of these group members is generated by intra‐group contact and mobilization. This article identifies two alternate mechanisms that can explain cohesiveness. First, stable characteristics that predict whether an individual selects a group identity can themselves determine political attitudes and thus partially account for the distinctiveness of those who share the identity. Second, one’s acquisition of a group identity can be a significant life event accompanied by a political conversion whose effects endure regardless of whether a group member interacts with others who share the identity. These two mechanisms are illustrated with analyses of the identity acquisition and political attitudes of lesbians, gays and bisexuals in the United States. 1
Political scientists have long been interested in documenting the conditions under which groups vote and express attitudes in cohesive ways. Many group memberships (such as racial or ethnic identity) are typically shared between parents and their offspring. Thus intergenerational transmission—which is the first source of partisanship and attitudes (Niemi and Jennings 1991)—helps explain why these group members tend to identify with a particular party and profess a consistent set of attitudes about politics. But a substantial number of politically relevant group memberships are chosen over the course of the life span, rather than being passed from parent to child during one’s upbringing. In the United States, these identities include union membership; military veteran status; identification with feminist or ethnic nationalist movements; becoming a “born‐again” Christian; and “coming out” as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB). Identification with groups like these is associated with distinctive patterns of party identification and political attitudes. What sustains this sort of political cohesion in the absence of intergenerational transmission of group identity? To answer this question, political scientists have frequently focused on the role of intra‐group contact, mobilization, and coordination. Writing in 1960, the authors of The American Voter stated that group membership has a “slow and cumulative influence over a period of time,” leading “simple contact and familiarity” to be an important factor in the growth of group identification (Campbell et al 1960:324). Since then, scholars across the spectrum of research on political behavior—including rational‐choice theorists, quantitative survey researchers, and qualitative political sociologists—have echoed early work in stressing the role of intra‐group contact, communication and coordination in fashioning group identities into political blocs. 2
Left unexplored by this work is how the acquisition of group membership can have consequences for political attitudes and behavior, even in the absence of group mobilization efforts. This paper identifies and illustrates two heretofore unexamined mechanisms that can connect acquired group membership with distinctive political attitudes. The first mechanism, selection, is a process by which stable characteristics that for most people are truly “unmoved movers”—such as gender, race, and indelible aspects of one’s background and upbringing—
partially determine whether a person self‐selects into membership of a politically relevant group. Because these background characteristics themselves determine political attitudes, they can partially explain the political cohesiveness associated with—and often incorrectly believed to be solely the consequence of—group membership. The second mechanism, conversion, takes place during the acquisition of a group identity that is so politically resonant that its adoption can be considered a critical life event. In these circumstances, the acquisition of a group identity can be accompanied by a political conversion that leaves a mark on an individual’s political views and behavior that endures regardless of the extent to which the person has contact with other group members or is mobilized by group leaders. Here I provide evidence for these mechanisms with analyses of the identity acquisition and political attitudes of lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans.1 LGBs are a particularly good example for illustrating and testing these mechanisms. Despite the fact that gay offspring are usually raised by non‐gay parents, LGBs in the United States exhibit high degrees of political cohesiveness, even on issues that have nothing to do with gay rights. Scholars of gay identity have presumed that these distinctive attitudes are the result of intra‐group contact. But I show that because those who identify as LGB come from distinctly more liberal and less traditional backgrounds than the general population, a significant amount of the difference in the political 1 In this article, I use the terms “lesbian, gay and bisexual,” “gay,” and “sexual minorities” interchangeably. 3
views of LGBs and the general population can be explained by a selection effect. Furthermore, because the act of coming out as gay is typically a politically resonant, life‐changing event, gay political distinctiveness can be explained to some degree by a conversion effect: gay people are politically distinctive from the moment of self‐identification, even in the absence of exposure to mobilization efforts by gay leaders. The findings highlight the importance of considering chosen identities as both causes and effects of distinctive political attitudes. Theories of Group Political Cohesion In their pathbreaking investigation of Elmira, N.Y. voters in the 1948 presidential election, Columbia University researchers Berelson, Lazarsfeld and McPhee (1954) noted the tendencies of blacks, Jews and other ethnic minorities to vote cohesively and discovered that this tendency was heightened to the extent that ethnic voters had strong ethnic identities. The Elmira study was the first instance of a half‐century of survey research that has consistently found an association between the strength of group identification and distinctive political attitudes and behavior (prominent examples include Campbell et al 1960; Verba and Nie 1972; Miller et al 1981; Conover 1984; Tate 1993; Dawson 1994). Memberships in racial, religious, and other groups are now included as standard predictors in models of individual vote choice, political attitudes, and behavior. Two broad points have emerged from this research. First, group membership does not necessarily imply group identity (nor the politically cohesive views that can accompany an identity). The epitomic example is that of economic class: many people whose income and life circumstances would by objective criteria qualify them as “working class” nevertheless do not identify that way, and they do not share the distinctive political behavior and attitudes associated with those who do (Centers 1949). Second, shared group identity (and even shared 4
political interests) do not necessarily imply distinctive group political behavior: some additional factor is needed to give the identity political meaning. For example, those who identify themselves as living with a disability are less likely to participate in politics than the general population. But this participation gap appears to be offset to the extent that individuals see their disability through the prism of the disability rights movement (Schur et al 2005). In their efforts to understand the path that leads from group identity to group political distinctiveness, scholars have generally viewed political cohesion as enhanced by ongoing coordination, contact and communication among group members. Political scientists have found that one’s social networks play a large role in shaping political attitudes and decisions, and that communications flows can have the effect of bolstering the majority view within a network (Huckfeldt and Sprague 1995). Theories of political acculturation follow a similar logic. For example, scholars have found a relationship between experience with the political system and distinctive voting behavior and affiliation among some immigrant groups, which they attribute to an acculturation process (Cain et al 1991; Wong 2000). In a related vein, some sort of within‐group contact is at the basis of theories of voter coordination, which posit that we observe group political cohesion when group leaders successfully mobilize their members to vote for one candidate or party and in turn win policy concessions for their group (Cox 1997, Harvey 1998). Those responsible for this sort of coordination can include political entrepreneurs (Olson 1965); formal organizations such as unions (Leighley & Nagler 2007); or social movements (McCarthy & Zald 1977). What is clear from this literature is that the mere fact that public policies affect groups in different ways is not enough to lead members of these 5
groups to act in politically distinctive ways: intra‐group communication, coordination, and mobilization are believed to play important and in many cases critical roles.2 Two New Mechanisms: Selection and Conversion But a careful consideration of the nature of acquired identities yields the conclusion that this story is incomplete: it ignores the role played by identity acquisition. Here I propose two alternate mechanisms—which I call selection and conversion—that generate group political cohesion in the absence of coordination or sustained intra‐group contact among those who have chosen a common group identity. Selection describes a process in which the background characteristics that predict whether an individual selects a group identity also predict his or her political views, leading these views to be correlated with—but not caused by—
identification with the group. The notion of selection underscores the importance of distinguishing between identities that are chosen and those that are transmitted from parent to child. While inherited identities are typically “unmoved movers,” and therefore any distinctive political beliefs can rightly be considered either causally proximate to or consequences of these identities, chosen identities can be effects in their own right. This is seen in Table 1, which displays models estimated with data from the General Social Survey. The dependent variable is whether an individual identifies as a union member, working or lower class, feminist, having had a born‐again religious experience, or serving as a military veteran—each an identity that has been shown to be associated with distinct patterns of political attitudes and participation. In the estimated models, group identification is predicted with individuals’ gender, race and ethnicity, and background characteristics such as their parents’ education, the region of their upbringing, and the religious tradition in which they were raised. All of these variables occur 2 For a thorough review of the literature on the effect of group membership on individual political behavior, see Huddy (2003). 6
prior to identity choice in the causal chain. As shown in the table, selection into each of the identities is predicted by these stable background characteristics—characteristics known to be themselves associated with political attitudes. An observation of this sort was made by Campbell and his American Voter colleagues, who speculated that the true influence of group membership was probably much stronger for inherited identities than chosen identities, as members of these groups are “recruited and come to identify with the group on the basis of pre‐existing beliefs and sympathies.” (1960: 323) However, recent work on identity and group political cohesion has left the development and selection of group identities largely unexamined (Huddy 2001). A second mechanism, conversion, is present when the acquisition of an identity may be accompanied by the acquisition of enduring attitudes about politics that are sustained in the absence of mobilization or intra‐group contact. This is most likely to happen when group membership is initiated by politically meaningful, high‐impact life events. These events can be conversion experiences that influence political attitudes and thus shape group political cohesion. Examples of these explored by scholars include events such as military service (Feaver & Gelpi 2005); coming out as lesbian, gay or bisexual (Hertzog 1996); adoption of the doctrinal beliefs accompanying born‐again Christianity (Layman 1997); and the experience of pain and loss (Jennings & Andersen 1996; Jennings 1999). Part of the explanation for the conversion mechanism can be found in the work of social identity theorists led by Henri Tajfel, who have shown that group cohesion can emerge in even the most artificial and minimal of conditions (Tajfel 1981). This occurs for both cognitive and motivational reasons. Humans understand categories in part by assessing the similarity of any given object with a prototypical member of the category (Lakoff 1987). Thus to make sense of a group identity that they have chosen, group members are inclined to conform to what they believe to be the beliefs and 7
political attitudes of an ideal type of group member (Turner et al 1987). Group cohesion may be psychologically motivated as well, particularly for members of low‐status groups who have a need for positive group differentiation (Tajfel & Turner 1979). Neither the cognitive nor motivational mechanisms posited by social identity theory require coordination or communication from other group members for activation. As an illustration of the enduring effects of group identity, consider Figure 1. It displays data from the Election Day exit polls conducted in the United States by the National Election Pool (a consortium of news organizations formerly known as Voter News Service). The exit poll is carried out using a multi‐stage cluster sampling design in which voters in a nationally representative sample of precincts are surveyed at random as they leave the polls. Participants complete an anonymous questionnaire that (in addition to vote choice) includes items about their political ideology as well as whether they identify with three groups associated with high‐
impact life events: identification as a born‐again Christian, a military veteran, or as lesbian, gay or bisexual. Aggregating these data by precinct provides estimates of the prevalence of these identities within a relatively small group of people living in a well‐defined geographic area.3 In Figure 1, each precinct is represented by a point plotted on a scattergram. The vertical axis is the proportion of group members in each precinct who identify as liberal. The horizontal axis is the proportion of voters in the precinct who identify as a group member. The relationships between these two variables are traced with smoothed lines drawn using the lowess technique (Cleveland 1993). To the extent that intra‐group contact, coordination and mobilization efforts are sustaining political distinctiveness among these groups, we should expect that such 3 In 1990, there were roughly 170,000 election precincts nationwide (King & Palmquist 1997). The national voting‐age population was 185.5 million people (U.S. Census Bureau 2006), yielding about 1,100 American adults per precinct. 8
distinctiveness should rise at least somewhat as the density of the group identity increases.4 But Figure 1 shows that this is not the case. Although all three groups differ ideologically from the general population (military veterans and born‐again Christians are more conservative; LGBs are more liberal), the monotonic relationship expected between the geographic density of group members and their political ideology is nowhere to be found. Furthermore, for the values of identity density about which we have the most information (indicated on the figures where the confidence bands about the lowess smoothers are narrowest), the relationship between density and ideology tends to be flat. Group political distinctiveness does not appear to be enhanced by intra‐group contact. Thus there are two reasons why group political cohesion might occur in the absence of mobilization efforts by political entrepreneurs or group leaders. Individuals may share political beliefs and attitudes long before they share a group identity (when selection is present) or the very act of acquiring a group identity can be accompanied by the changing of political beliefs (in a conversion process) that is sustained over the long term in the absence of intra‐group mobilization. The Political Distinctiveness of Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals Lesbians, gays and bisexuals provide a rich illustration of how the mechanisms of selection and conversion can lead to group political homogeneity. Since measures of lesbian, gay and bisexual identity first appeared in surveys conducted with representative samples of Americans in the early 1990s, LGBs have exhibited consistently distinctive political behavior 4 Of course, one can overcome lack of spatial proximity to gain contact with others who share one’s identity. But if contact played a strong role in the transmission of political values among those who share these identities, it is very unlikely that absolutely no relationship would be found between the geographic concentration of group members and their political views. The lack of such a relationship is even more notable because if selection bias exists (i.e., that ideology leads to residential choice), it should work in favor of a finding of a relationship between the two variables to the extent that we expect ideological group members to be more likely to move to places that have a higher proportion of group members in the local population. 9
and attitudes. They vote at higher rates than do heterosexuals for Democratic presidential and Congressional candidates; they are more likely to consider themselves Democrats and liberals; and they hold distinctive views on the legal recognition of same‐sex relationships (Edelman 1993; Hertzog 1996; Sherrill 1996; Bailey 1999; Smith and Haider‐Markel 2002; Lewis, Rogers and Sherrill 2003; Egan and Sherrill 2005; Shaffner and Senic 2006). Given America’s partisan polarization on the issue of gay rights, these differences might be attributed to self‐interest on the part of LGB voters. But as shown in Figure 2, distinctions between LGBs and non‐LGBs also exist on issues that have little or nothing to do with gay rights, including the proper role of government, environmental concerns, and the Iraq war. Differences between LGBs and heterosexuals remain once the effects of potential confounding variables are considered. The gray bars in Figure 2 display the estimated differences (in percentage points) between LGBs and non‐LGBs after controlling for the factors of sex, age, race, education, income, party identification, and ideology with probit analyses. For every one of these dependent variables, these differences are substantial. Actual differences range from 11 to 30 percentage points; estimated differences after controls range from five to 26 percentage points. These distinctive political views and behaviors—and particularly those that on their face have nothing to do with gay rights—present a puzzle. Unlike those who belong to ethnic or racial minority groups, gays generally do not share their group identity with their parents. This makes it impossible that gay political distinctiveness can be due to the parent‐to‐child transmission which is the first source of partisanship and attitudes. Following the conventional wisdom, scholars of LGB political behavior have speculated that these distinct political affiliations and views are disseminated among LGBs through intra‐group contact, acculturation, and mobilization (Hertzog 1996; Sherrill 1996; Bailey 1999). However, this explanation has never been validated by empirical research. 1
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Gay identity as chosen identity. Before proceeding with the analysis, a short discussion is needed regarding the difference between the ascribed trait of homosexuality on the one hand and acquired lesbian, gay or bisexual identity on the other. The preponderance of the evidence from research suggests that the degree to which one is sexually attracted to those of the same sex (which for expository convenience I call “homosexuality”) is an ascribed trait that is fixed at birth or in early childhood, and that it is difficult to change. By contrast, the identity of being lesbian, gay, or bisexual is an affirmative choice made by some who are endowed with the trait of homosexuality. Recent research suggests that homosexuality is associated with long‐term individual characteristics, including personality (Lippa 2005), as well as physiological traits such as brain structure (LeVay 1991), left‐ or right‐handedness (Lalumière et al 2000) and even hair‐whorl rotation (Klar 2004). Interviews with self‐identified gay people find that many experience “confusion” (Cass 1979, 1984) or “sensitization” (Troiden 1989) as they realize that they are different from their heterosexual peers—often at a very early age (see also Bell et al 1981). Some scholarship counters that sexual attraction can change over time, but even this research has found many gays and lesbians describing their identity as chosen in response to interior feelings that they experience as unalterable (Whisman 1996). Taken as a whole, these findings indicate that (in contemporary American culture, at least) the degree to which one experiences oneself as homosexual is nearly immutable trait that manifests itself prior to any identity that one adopts in response to it. But while homosexuality is experienced as unchangeable, research indicates that whether one responds to this trait by acquiring a gay identity is subject to a fair amount of individual choice and cultural and temporal variation. Like all identities, gay identity is a social construction that is particular to our place and time (Greenberg 1988). A main goal of organized gay advocacy efforts—which have existed in the United States only since the 1
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1950s—has been to transform society’s understanding of homosexuality from a deviant behavior to an acceptable identity (D’Emilio 1983). Scholars of sexuality have found important distinctions among the concepts of sexual attraction, sexual behavior, and self‐professed sexual orientation or sexual identity (Laumann et al 1994), and many people who are attracted to others of their sex or engage in homosexual activity still consider themselves heterosexual (see, e.g., Laumann et al 1994; Mosher, Chandra & Jones 2005; Pathela et al 2006). A typical finding comes from a 2003 telephone survey conducted with a representative sample of New York City residents aged 18 or older, in which 11.6 percent of the males in the sample reported having sex exclusively with men in the previous year but only 5.6 percent of males in the sample identified as gay or bisexual (Pathela et al 2006).5 Research is scarce on what determines whether someone who is homosexual adopts a gay identity, but this choice is non‐random. For example, the study by Pathela et al (2006) found that gay‐identified men were more likely to be white and have higher income and education levels than men who reported having exclusively male sexual partners but nevertheless called themselves “straight.” Therefore just as the distinction between subjective economic class and objective economic circumstances has important political consequences, so should we expect the difference between being born homosexual and identifying as gay to be politically relevant. As I will show, this choice is the source of both the selection and conversion effects that explain the political cohesion seen among lesbians, gays and bisexuals. The null hypothesis. The literature on group political cohesiveness points those seeking to understand how LGBs learn to associate their identity with a distinctive set of political attitudes toward one explanation: intra‐group contact, coordination and mobilization. The few 5 These are my calculations from Pathela et al’s Table 1. 1
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published empirical studies that document LGBs’ attitudes and political behavior have followed in this vein by asserting—but not demonstrating—that some sort of group socialization is responsible for gay political distinctiveness. In his pioneering study of lesbian and gay voting behavior, Hertzog (1996: 36) proposes that “group consciousness” is responsible for LGBs’ distinctive voting patterns but does not specify how such consciousness comes about. Bailey (1999: 132) argues that gay political distinctiveness is made possible by a “subculture” in which LGBs develop networks and social ties with one another in American cities, but he does not substantiate this claim with any data. Similarly, Sherrill (1996: 472) speculates that the “formation of political consciousness requires discussion and the development of a shared sense of conditions and grievances” among lesbians and gays and suggests that conditions like these are found mostly in large cities and university towns where demographic data suggest lesbians and gays are most concentrated (see Gates and Ost 2004). In a study examining the question of gay political distinctiveness with survey data of LGBs, Schaffner and Senic (2006) show that LGBs’ preferences for the Democratic Party and its candidates are heightened to the extent that they are concerned about obtaining employee benefits for same‐sex partners. In contrast to previous work, the research presented here is the first to consider the consequences of the acquisition of a lesbian, gay or bisexual identity among those endowed with the trait of homosexuality—which, as I will show, includes important implications for individuals’ political affiliations and attitudes. New hypotheses. The discussion here suggests three testable hypotheses that might explain the political distinctiveness of LGBs. The null hypothesis is that LGBs should be politically distinctive from heterosexuals to the extent that they have contact with other LGBs and become acculturated through participation in electoral politics. Support for this hypothesis—which I call the embeddedness hypothesis—will be found if gay distinctiveness increases over the life 1
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span, if it increases with gays’ experience with political participation, and if it is greater among gay people who live near one another. Two additional hypotheses are derived from the selection and conversion mechanisms proposed here. First, it may be that gay political distinctiveness is at least partially due to a selection effect: those who respond to their same‐sex tendencies by acquiring a gay identity may come from backgrounds in which there is less moral approbation of homosexuality—and these backgrounds themselves are in turn strong predictors of liberal political attitudes. This is the selection hypothesis, and it predicts that gay political distinctiveness can be partially explained by the fact that gay people are raised in distinctively less traditional and more liberal backgrounds. The other hypothesis draws upon research on gay identity formation to propose that the struggle over embracing a gay identity is a high‐impact life event that changes how gay people think about politics. Because this decision requires identification of oneself with a group to which society assigns a “stigmatized” or “outsider” status (Goffman 1963, Becker 1963), this experience leads gay people to sympathize with those who belong to other marginalized groups and thus support politicians and policies that they believe help these groups. This has long been the argument of gay leaders who claim that shared marginalized status should lead to natural alliances between LGBs and other minority groups (Vaid 1995). A related explanation echoes those offered by social identity theorists: the acquisition of a gay identity may give LGBs an incentive to alter their political views in order to reduce the incongruousness between their newfound identity and the American national political environment. These conjectures are the basis of the conversion hypothesis, and support for it will be found to the extent that it can be detected that gay people are politically different from similarly situated heterosexuals soon after they adopt a gay identity. 1
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Data
Only two sources of survey data drawn from representative samples of Americans exist that permit comparison of LGB political preferences with those of the general population. The first source consists of the exit poll data displayed in Figures 1 and 2, derived from polls conducted in presidential and congressional elections by the Voter News Service (VNS) from 1990 through 2002 and its successor, the National Election Pool (NEP) in 2004 and 2006. I combined data from eight administrations of the survey to create a pooled dataset that includes 1,818 voters who identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual.6 The second source of data is the cumulative file of the GSS (data from which are displayed in Table 1) which since 1988 has asked its nationally representative sample of American adults about the sex of their sexual partners. GSS respondents are not asked whether they consider themselves lesbian, gay or bisexual. Like the VNS/NEP, the GSS asks its respondents about their voting decisions and political views. In addition, the GSS asks its respondents a range of questions about their upbringing and the environments in which they were raised. This dataset, which includes interviews through 2006, has 564 respondents who reported having at least one same‐sex sexual partner in the 12 months prior to being surveyed. Although quite valuable, these data are not ideal. The GSS is a nationally representative sample of adults, but it asks only about sexual behavior and not sexual orientation. This not only constrains what can be learned about gay identity from the GSS, but it also requires that any analysis of the effects of sexual orientation be limited to those who report being sexually active. The VNS/NEP asks about sexual orientation, but it only surveys voters. Both surveys make laudable, but necessarily imperfect, attempts to contend with the social desirability 6 In 1990, voters were asked if they were gay or lesbian. From 1992 and onwards, voters were asked if they were gay, lesbian or bisexual. Because not every form of the exit poll questionnaire includes a sexual orientation question, typically only one‐half of respondents are asked their sexual orientation in any given year. 1
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effects that can lead survey respondents to underreport homosexual behavior and orientation. In the VNS/NEP, voters fill out a paper questionnaire as they leave polling places and deposit them, unseen, in a box. The GSS includes its questions about sex partners in a confidential, self‐
administered component of its in‐person survey.7 No dataset exists that concurrently measures respondents’ sexual identity, innate sexual orientation, and political characteristics. However, analysis of data from the GSS provides some important insights. As stated before, the GSS asks about the sex of respondents’ sexual partners. We can surmise that those who report at least one partner of the same sex over the year prior to survey administration are endowed with the trait of homosexuality to some significant degree. And although the GSS does not ask respondents about their sexual orientation, it does ask the question “What about sexual relations between two adults of the same sex—do you think it is always wrong, almost always wrong, wrong only sometimes, or not wrong at all?”8 A substantial fraction of respondents—including a remarkable 42 percent of those reporting homosexual activity in the 12 months prior to being surveyed—believes that homosexuality is at least “sometimes” wrong. It is likely that responses to this question among those engaged in homosexual activity are a noisy measure of how they would respond to a question regarding LGB identity if they were to be asked. Responses to the question indicate the extent to which these respondents have integrated a central message of the gay rights movement: that their homosexuality is 7 The GSS and the VNS/NEP currently find prevalence rates of (respectively) adults with same‐sex partners and voters identifying as LGB that fall between three and five percent of their samples. Analysis of these data (not shown here) indicates that the proportion of respondents reporting same‐sex sexual partners (to the GSS) or identifying as LGB (to the VNS/NEP) rose throughout the 1990s and then leveled off, suggesting that any social desirability effects may have tapered off in recent years as the stigma of homosexuality as declined. 8 This question is preceded in the GSS by similar questions on the morality of premarital sex and adultery. It is asked in a section of the survey that occurs well before respondents are asked about their sexual partners, allaying concerns of the presence of a question‐order effect. 1
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morally acceptable. Four observations support this claim. First, of those with same‐sex partners who stated that homosexuality is “not wrong at all” who reported voting in presidential elections between 1984 and 2004, 73.3 percent said they supported the Democratic candidate—a proportion similar to the average share of LGB voters reporting support for Democratic presidential candidates in the exit polls (77.8 percent). Second, in GSS surveys administered between 1988 and 1993 those with same‐sex partners who believed homosexual relations are “not wrong at all” were significantly more likely to report they knew someone living with AIDS—the impact of which had by then been felt fully in gay communities—than those who thought homosexual sex was at least “sometimes” wrong (p = .015). Third, of those with recent same‐sex partners, only those who say homosexuality is “not wrong at all” are politically distinctive from the general population; the remainder are not. In Table A1, Americans’ party identification, ideology and opinion on defense spending and capital punishment are predicted with indicator variables for whether they have recently had a same‐sex partner, their beliefs about the morality of homosexuality, and the interaction of these two variables, as well as several demographic variables as controls. As shown at the bottom of the table, those with same‐sex partners who view homosexuality with moral acceptance are significantly more Democratic and liberal than the general population. But those with same‐sex partners who believe homosexuality is at least “sometimes” wrong are not significantly politically distinctive compared to those in the general population. Finally, opinion about the morality of homosexuality has an important consequence that is limited only to those with same‐sex partners: it is associated with participation in electoral politics. In a probit analysis predicting voting in presidential elections (as self‐reported to the GSS), those with same‐sex partners who believe that homosexual relations are “not wrong at all” are more likely to vote than those who believe relations are at least “sometimes” wrong by an estimated 1
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19 percentage points. The comparable effect among those with only opposite‐sex partners is only four points (see Table A2 for details). All of these observations support the conclusion that, as a measure of self‐acceptance, opinion on the morality of homosexual sex has a special meaning for those with same‐sex sexual partners—a meaning that is distinct from generic liberal political attitudes for these individuals. I conclude that this measure captures LGB sexual identity in an unbiased, if imperfect, fashion. Results Selection. The selection hypothesis proposes that those with the trait of homosexuality who happen to be raised in backgrounds in which there is less moral approbation of homosexuality are more likely to acquire a gay identity. Because these backgrounds are themselves strong predictors of liberal political attitudes later in life, different upbringings—and not anything specifically about being LGB—may be partially responsible for the political distinctiveness of LGB people. To explore this hypothesis, I use data from the GSS because it asks questions about the upbringings of its respondents. I assume that among those who report having a same‐sex sexual partner in the past 12 months, the stipulation that homosexual relations are “not wrong at all” is a noisy measure of LGB identity. Figure 3 shows that those who fall into this category do come from strikingly less traditional and less conservative backgrounds than the typical American. They are less likely to be raised in a religiously fundamentalist household; more likely to have a mother who is college educated; and less likely to be raised in the South (which the GSS indicates is the least liberal region of the nation).9 Figure 4 confirms that these differences in upbringings contribute to LGBs’ political distinctiveness. The figure displays predictions derived from a recursive bivariate probit 9 GSS data from 1988‐2006 indicate that 23.0 percent of Southerners identified as liberal, the lowest such figure among the four national regions designated by the U.S. Census. 1
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model (shown in Table A3) in which homosexual respondents’ backgrounds are assumed to have direct effects on their political views as well as indirect effects through their beliefs about the morality of their homosexuality.10 Were gay people’s upbringings no different than those of typical Americans along the three dimensions of upbringing (parents’ education, religious upbringing, and liberalism of region where raised), the predicted prevalence of liberalism among sexual minorities would decline from 70.1 percent to 64.2 percent—a statistically significant change of 6.1 percentage points. The size of the selection effect is substantial when we consider that the difference in the prevalence of liberalism among the general population and those with same‐sex partners who believe homosexuality is “not wrong at all” is 32.3 percentage points. Selection effects due to differences in upbringing therefore account for 6.1/32.3 = 19 percent of this ideological distinctiveness. Conversion and embeddedness. The conversion hypothesis states that the process of acquiring an LGB identity can occur simultaneously with the acquisition of a distinctive set of liberal political beliefs—and well before LGBs have the chance to become mobilized by the gay rights movement or acculturated by contact with gay peers. By contrast, the embeddedness hypothesis asserts that over‐time political socialization in LGB communities and acculturation to the LGB movement’s liberal agenda accounts for the political distinctiveness of gay people. Evidence for the conversion hypothesis will be found to the extent that LGBs are politically different from heterosexuals soon after the “coming out” process, and thus if there are significant LGB‐heterosexual differences among the youngest voters, among those who have little experience with politics, and among those who do not live in areas of high LGB population density. Similarly, support for the embeddedness hypothesis will be found to the extent that 10 To improve the estimation, the analysis includes more finely coded versions of the variables than depicted in Figure 3. See Table A3 for details. For a description of the estimation technique, see Greene 2008, 817‐
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gay people’s distinct attitudes become more pronounced as they age, gain experience with politics, and if they live in areas with many other LGBs. To test these hypotheses I turn to the VNS/NEP data, which includes all of these measures. I find a great deal of support for the conversion hypothesis and only moderate support for the embeddedness hypothesis. In Table 2, I present estimates of the determinants of voters’ political ideology, party identification, support for environmentalist priorities, and attitudes about the Iraq war. The models include variables for voters’ sexual orientation, age, the proportion of voters in their precinct identifying as LGB, and (where data were available) whether respondents indicated that they were voting for the first time. Controls (not shown in the table) were included for gender, race and ethnicity, and year of survey. To assess how LGBs’ views change with age, first‐time voter status, and gay population density, I also included terms in which these variables were interacted with LGB identity. The embeddedness hypothesis is supported if age, experience with voting, and residence in areas with more LGBs enhances gay political distinctiveness. The embeddedness hypothesis therefore leads us to expect the signs of the coefficients on the interaction terms for age and gay population density to be same as the sign of the coefficient on the LGB constitutive term, but to expect that the sign of the coefficient on the interaction term for first‐time voter status will be the opposite as that of the LGB constitutive term. Looking at Table 2, we see only mixed support for the embeddedness hypothesis. On three out of the four dependent variables, LGBs become less distinctive from heterosexuals as they grow older. Furthermore, the negative signs on the LGB x % of precinct identifying as LGB terms in all four of the analyses echo the finding shown in Figure 1: gay people are no more politically distinctive from their non‐LGB neighbors when they live in areas with a higher 2
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proportion of LGBs. The one area of support for the notion of embeddedness is that experienced LGB voters are more likely to call themselves liberal and identify as Democrats than are first‐time LGB voters, suggesting that some sort of learning accompanies the practice of voting. Tests of the conversion hypothesis are found at the bottom of Table 2, which displays the predicted probabilities of being a liberal, identifying as a Democrat, prioritizing the environment, and strongly disapproving of the Iraq War among those voters who we can surmise are likely to have had the least amount of contact with the gay rights movement: the youngest voters (aged 18), first‐time voters, and those living in a precinct where there are very few voters who identify as LGB (0.1 percent). In each of these cases, the conversion hypothesis leads us to expect significant differences in attitudes between LGBs and heterosexuals, despite the fact that these are conditions under which there has been the least chance for acculturation and mobilization. As shown in the table, these tests generally find substantial and statistically significant evidence that LGB voters hold distinctively liberal views from an early age, from the moment they begin participating in electoral politics, and even if they are one of the few people (or perhaps the only person) in their immediate vicinity identifying as gay. The final row of the table “stacks the deck” against the conversion hypothesis by assessing whether differences between LGBs and heterosexuals persist among voters who share all three of these characteristics. Gay people remain politically distinctive even under these conditions. Thus from the moment they come of age, from the moment they begin participating in electoral politics, and regardless of where they live, voters who identify as gay tend to hold political attitudes that are more liberal than those of similarly situated voters who do not. Given the partisan and ideological polarization of the gay rights debate in the United States, the 2
1
findings regarding Democratic Party identification and liberal ideology may be unsurprising. But the findings that gay voters are also more likely than heterosexuals to take liberal views on environmentalism and the Iraq war (issues which on their faces have nothing to do with gay rights) suggest that the decision to identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual is for many a political conversion: the adoption of an “off‐the‐shelf package” of liberal opinions and political affiliations that LGBs tend to hold regardless of the extent of their experience with politics or their contact with other gay people. Embeddedness plays some role in leading LGBs to be a politically distinctive group in American politics, but its importance appears to have been overemphasized. A decade ago, Timothy Cook concluded his review of what he called the “first wave” of empirical political science on LGB politics by noting that “we do not fully understand the extent to which the self‐adoption of a sexual identity is a political act, or at least has implications for a person’s political understanding and political activities.” (Cook 1999: 691) The findings presented here support the conclusion that coming out as lesbian, gay or bisexual—and the attendant belief that homosexuality is “not wrong at all”—occurs in the lives of a distinct subset of those who are homosexual, and that is a high‐impact life event with important political consequences. Individual choices to identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual in response to the trait of homosexuality make sexual minorities a distinctively liberal group in American politics. Conclusion Now as in the past, electoral appeals to groups bound together by common identities hold a prominent place in politics and policymaking. In their study of this phenomenon, political scientists have tended to focus on the roles that group leaders and within‐group communication play in helping group members understand what their identities mean and 2
2
connecting these identities with distinctive patterns of political action. The research presented here suggests that cohesive forces are in place that can affect group members prior to any efforts to mobilize them. Background characteristics that are themselves associated with distinct political beliefs can affect whether an individual selects a group identity, and the acquisition of an identity can be associated with a political conversion: the adoption of an enduring set of political views. These mechanisms both help and hinder group leaders. Selection effects can create “incidental alliances” between the rank‐and‐file members of different groups that are in place regardless of elites’ actions. For example, those who identify as born‐again Christian are more likely than the general population to come from the sorts of backgrounds associated with political conservatism. This makes born‐again Christians natural—if incidental—allies with other conservative causes, regardless of whether religious leaders mobilize them to become so. By imbuing an identity with political meaning, conversion effects can increase the expressive benefits associated with political participation and reduce group members’ incentives to free ride on the activities of others. But these mechanisms also provide a new explanation for why many minority groups—including LGBs and born‐again Christians—are subject to electoral capture, a phenomenon in which a group’s votes are taken for granted by one political party and largely uncontested by the other (Frymer & Skrentny 1998; Frymer 1999). The persistent nature of selection and conversion effects can make it difficult for group leaders to credibly threaten to mobilize group members to align themselves in new ways. Clearly, a thorough understanding of group political cohesion—and more generally, the dynamics of group politics—must take into account the fact that leaders are both aided and constrained by their group members’ enduring political beliefs. 2
3
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LeVay, Simon. 1991. “A Difference in the Hypothalamic Structure between Heterosexual and Homosexual Men.” Science 253(August 30): 1034‐1037. Lewis, Gregory B., Rogers, Marc A. and Kenneth Sherrill. 2003. “Sexual Identity, Sexual Behavior, and Group Socialization: Does Gay Sex Turn People into Liberal Democrats?” Presented at the 2003 American Association for Public Opinion Research annual meeting. Lippa, Richard A. 2005. “Sexual Orientation and Personality.” Annual Review of Sex Research 16:119‐153. Long, J. Scott and Jeremy Freese. 2005. Regression Models for Categorical Outcomes Using Stata. College Station, TX: Stata Press. McCarthy, John D. and Mayer N. Zald. 1977. “Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Theory.” American Journal of Sociology 82(6): 1212‐1241. Mosher William D., Anjani Chandra, and Jo Jones. 2005. “Sexual behavior and selected health measures: Men and women 15–44 years of age, United States, 2002” Advance Data From Vital and Health Statistics 362(September 15). Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. Niemi, Richard G. and M. Kent Jennings. 1991. “Issues and Inheritance in the Formation of Party Identification.” American Journal of Political Science 35(4): 970‐988. Olson, Mancur. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Pathela, Preeti, Anjum Hajat, Julia Schillinger, Susan Blank, Randall Sell, and Farzad Mostashari. 2006. “Discordance between Sexual Behavior and Self‐Reported Sexual Identity: A Population‐Based Survey of New York City Men.” Annals of Internal Medicine 145(6): 416‐425. Schaffner, Brian and Nenad Senic. 2006. “Rights or Benefits? Explaining the Sexual Identity Gap in American Political Behavior.” Political Research Quarterly 59(1): 123‐132. Schur, Lisa, Todd Shields, and Kay Schriner. 2005. “Generational Cohorts, Group Membership and Political Participation by People with Disabilities.” Political Research Quarterly 58(3): 487‐496. Sherrill, Kenneth. 1996. “The Political Power of Lesbians, Gays and Bisexuals.” PS: Political Science and Politics. 29(3):469‐473. Smith, Raymond A. and Donald P. Haider‐Markel. 2002. Gay and Lesbian Americans and Political Participation: A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC‐CLIO Press. Tate, Katherine. 1993. From Protest to Politics: The New Black Voters in American Elections. New York: Russell Sage Foundation and Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Troiden, Richard. 1989. “The formation of homosexual identities.” Journal of Homosexuality 17: 43‐73. U.S. Census Bureau. 2006. Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2007. Washington, DC. Vaid, Urvashi. 1995. Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation. New York: Anchor Books. Verba, Sidney and Norman H. Nie. 1972. Participation in America: Political Democracy and Social Equality. New York: Harper and Row. Whisman, Vera. 1996. Queer by Choice: Lesbians, Gay Men and the Politics of Identity. New York: Routledge. 2
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APPENDICES Table A1. Demographic Determinants of Party ID and Political Views source for data: General Social Survey, 1988­2006. same‐sex partner in past 12 months (samesex) homosexuality “not wrong at all” samesex x homosexuality “not wrong at all” Hispanic black female age year of birth intercept N pseudo R‐squared Estimated pr(y = 1) for typical respondent who: had same‐sex partner in past 12 months, …and thinks homosexuality is “not wrong at all” …and thinks homosexuality is at least “sometimes” wrong did not have same‐sex partner in past 12 months “too oppose identify as identity as much” is capital Democrat
liberal spent on punishment
defense *
.156 .256 .227 .163 (.119) (.124) (.187) (.126) .454***
.714*** .430*** .231*** (.030) (.031) (.044) (.033) .063 .194 .054 .161 (.153) (.157) (.230) (.159) .349***
.066 .100 .308*** (.053) (.057) (.077) (.057) 1.074***
.318*** .275*** .788*** (.042) (.040) (.056) (.040) ***
**
.105
.006 ‐.100 .201*** (.026) (.028) (.038) (.029) ‐.005 ‐.018*** ‐.026*** .016*** (.002) (.003) (.004) (.003) ‐.013***
‐.015*** ‐.017*** .016*** (.002) (.003) (.003) (.003) 24.672*** 28.919*** 33.219*** ‐33.417*** (4.737) (5.056) (6.910) (5.195) 10,167 9,914 4,872 9,649 .07 .06 .03 .06 .61* .63* .54* .40* .41*+ .28*+ .35*+ .26*+ .35+ .20+ .27+ .21+ Cells contain probit coefficients with their estimated standard errors in parentheses. *Difference between predicted probabilities is greater than zero, p<.05 (two‐tailed test). +Difference between predicted probabilities is not greater than zero, p<.05 (two‐tailed test). Typical respondent is at median value for age (39) and year of birth (1957) and modal values for other variables (does not believe homosexuality is “not wrong at all,” female, not Black, not Hispanic). 2
8
Table A2. Determinants of Voting in Presidential Elections, 1984­2004 source for data: General Social Survey, 1988­2006 probit coefficient variable same‐sex partner in past 12 months (samesex)
homosexuality “not wrong at all” samesex x homosexuality “not wrong at all”
age age2 black Hispanic female education (years) real income/10,000 (in 1986 dollars)
population of city or town (in thousands)
year of birth samesex x age samesex x age2 samesex x black samesex x Hispanic samesex x female samesex x education (years) samesex x real income/10,000 (in 1986 dollars)
samesex x population of city or town (in thousands)
samesex x year of birth intercept N pseudo R‐squared Estimated probability of voting for typical respondent who: had same‐sex partner in past 12 months, …and thinks homosexuality is “not wrong at all”
…and thinks homosexuality is at least “sometimes” wrong
difference:
did not have same‐sex partner in past 12 months, …and thinks homosexuality is “not wrong at all”
…and thinks homosexuality is at least “sometimes” wrong
difference:
s.e. 9.117
.113**
.375*
.043***
.000***
.068
‐.271***
.070*
.125***
.000***
.000
‐.007**
.010
.000
.195
‐.567
‐.173
.019
.000
.000
‐.005
11.713*
(35.008)
(.035)
(.182)
(.007)
(.000)
(.045)
(.061)
(.030)
(.006)
(.000)
(.000)
(.003)
(.043)
(.000)
(.258)
(.335)
(.174)
(.035)
(.000)
(.000)
(.018)
(5.721)
8,988 .14 .68 .49 .19** .66 .62 .04** Probit coefficients and estimated differences in predicted probabilities are significantly different from zero at +p<.10, *p< .05, **p<.01, ***p<.001 (two‐tailed tests). Predictions generated for respondents with modal values for sex (female), race (white, not Hispanic), and median values for year of birth (1957); age (39), education (13 years), annual household income ($26,488 in 1986 dollars), and population of city of residence (24,000). 2
9
Table A3. Determinants of Liberal Views and Beliefs About Morality of Homosexuality (Recursive Bivariate Probit Model) source for data: General Social Survey, 1988­2006 DV: identify as liberal coef. Variable belief that homosexuality is “not wrong at all” mother’s education (mean years) father’s education (mean years) raised in religiously fundamentalist household1 raised in religiously moderate household1 acceptance of homosexuality in region of upbringing2 age year of birth Female Black Hispanic same‐sex sexual partner in past 12 months (samesex) samesex x belief that homosexuality is “not wrong at all” samesex x mother’s education (mean years) samesex x father’s education (mean years) samesex x raised in religiously fundamentalist household1 samesex x raised in religiously moderate household1 samesex x acceptance of homosexuality in region of upbringing2 samesex x age samesex x year of birth samesex x female samesex x black samesex x Hispanic intercept N rho likelihood ratio test of H0: rho = 0 ***
s.e. 1.368 (.230) ‐.012 (.008) .018** (.006) ‐.039 (.062) ‐.006 (.045) .148 (.356) ‐.026*** (.004) ‐.028*** (.004) ‐.071 (.039) .544*** (.061) .248** (.081) 15.187 (37.621) .398 (.220) .007 (.042) .018 (.034) .137 (.274) ‐.072 (.237) .468 (1.721) ‐.005 (.018) ‐.008 (.019) .199 (.210) ‐.086 (.411) ‐.295 (.557) 53.963*** (7.675) DV: homosexuality “not wrong at all” coef. s.e. .041*** (.008) .013* (.006) ***
‐.496
(.050) ‐.102* (.043) ***
2.753
(.292) .029*** (.003) .038*** (.003) .263*** (.035) ‐.100 (.070) ‐.105 (.086) 60.688 (38.594) .022 (.044) .001 (.035) .274 (.277) .237 (.247) 2.931 (1.763) ‐.019 (.019) ‐.031 (.019) .156 (.215) ‐.593 (.405) ‐.625 (.505) ‐78.139*** (6.403) 6,553 ‐.434 chi‐squared statistic: 4.71665; p = .03 Predictions generated by model3 Percent with same‐sex partners in past 12 months who believe homosexuality is “not wrong at all” 59.5% 4
predicted to identify themselves as liberal 53.4% 5
Percent predicted to identify as liberal had their upbringings been no different than those of the general population Difference (size of selection effect):
6.1% +
Cell entries contain probit coefficients and their estimated standard errors. 1 Base category for these variables: raised in religiously liberal household. 2 Proportion of residents in region where respondent reported living at age 16 that agreed that homosexuality is “not wrong at all” in GSS surveys administered 1988 through 2006. 3
0
3 4 5 + Predictions shown are the medians of 1,000 bootstrapped predictions generated by sampling data with replacement and estimating bivariate probit model. To generate predictions, demographic variables were held constant at their survey‐weighted means among GSS respondents with same‐sex partners in the past 12 months who said homosexuality was “not wrong at all” (age = 37.7; year of birth = 1961; female = .483; black = .086; Hispanic = .079) as values for upbringing variables were varied (see notes 4 and 5 below). The predictions incorporate the independent variables’ direct effects on political views as well as their indirect effects through beliefs about the morality of homosexuality. See Greene (2008: 823‐826) for a discussion of this technique. To generate this prediction, upbringing variables were set to their survey‐weighted means among GSS respondents with same‐sex partners in the past 12 months who said homosexuality was “not wrong at all”: mother’s education = 12.6; father’s education = 12.7; acceptance of homosexuality in region of upbringing= .212; raised in religiously fundamentalist household = .242; raised in religiously moderate household = .500. To generate this prediction, upbringing variables were set to their survey‐weighted means among the entire GSS sample: mother’s education =11.5; father’s education = 12.6; acceptance of homosexuality in region of upbringing = .191; raised in religiously fundamentalist household = .331; raised in religiously moderate household = .429. Zero does not fall within the bootstrapped 95% confidence interval generated about this estimated difference. 3
1
TABLES Table 1. Predicting selection into group membership with stable social characteristics and upbringing source for data: General Social Survey Cumulative File, various years. Predictors: stable social characteristics and upbringing female black Hispanic/Latino year of birth raised in fundamentalist religious tradition raised in South mother has college degree father has college degree both parents born in U.S. family income at age 16 intercept N p‐value of test of H0: all coefficients equal to zero pseudo R2 32
born‐again Christian .200*** (.034) .274*** (.051) .243*** (.067) ‐.003** (.001) .612*** (.038) .531*** (.037) ‐.035 (.062) ‐.018 (.057) .201*** (.053) ‐.122 (.064) 4.689* (1.844) 6,467 .000 .11 DV: Identification with group military feminist labor union veteran .627*** (.086) .221 (.123) .286 (.184) ‐.006* (.003) ‐.128 (.099) ‐.163 (.099) .156 (.135) .100 (.126) ‐.301* (.117) 10.361* (4.890) 1,301 .000 .06 ‐.495*** (.023) .282*** (.035) .024 (.054) .000 (.001) ‐.040 (.027) ‐.374*** (.029) ‐.070 (.048) ‐.110*** (.043) .047 (.034) ‐.128*** (.045) ‐1.380 (1.258) 22,551 .000 .05 ‐2.071*** (.042) ‐.168** (.051) ‐.075 (.089) ‐.018*** (.001) ‐.039 (.036) ‐.041 (.036) ‐.050 (.072) ‐.204*** (.061) .148*** (.044) ‐.048 (.060) 34.766*** (1.736) 14,192 .000 .34 working or lower class ‐.024 (.016) .289*** (.024) .295*** (.037) .010*** (.000) .190*** (.018) .014 (.018) ‐.374*** (.032) ‐.491*** (.029) .003 (.023) ‐.616*** (.030) ‐19.926*** (.821) 28,133 .000 .07 Table 2. Determinants of Party Identification, Ideology and Policy Attitudes source for data: Voter News Service/National Exit Pool (VNS/NEP), 1990­2006. Dependent variables Democrat prioritize environ‐
mental protection 1.175*** (.158) ‐.008*** (.001) .161*** (.036) .024*** (.003) .498*** (.150) .005*** (.001) .001 (.029) .017*** (.003) .708 (.541) ‐.010*** (.002) .005 (.010) .889* (.369) .004* (.002) .022** (.008) ‐.008* (.004) ‐.483*** (.146) ‐.025*** (.005) 26,301 .03 ‐.005 (.004) ‐.271* (.128) ‐.005 (.004) 35,321 .05 ‐.005 (.012) ‐.009 (.014) 2,519 .01 .000 (.007) ‐.039*** (.009) 6,007 .05 liberal Variable Lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) age first‐time voter1 % of precinct identifying as LGB tests of embeddedness hypothesis LGB x age LGB x first‐time voter1 LGB x % of precinct identifying as LGB N pseudo R‐squared tests of conversion hypothesis Estimated pr(y=1) for typical voter who is… …LGB, age 18 …not LGB, age 18 …LGB, first‐time voter1 …not LGB, first‐time voter1 …LGB, lives in precinct with few gay people (.1% LGB) …not LGB, lives in precinct with few gay people Estimated difference between LGBs and non‐LGBs among first‐time voters1 aged 18 who live in a precinct with few gay people .63+ .27+ .35+ .25+ +
.45+ .31+ +
.43 .33+ .65 .49 .04 .61+ .34+ .80 .60 .21+ .34 .35 .46 .18+ strongly disapprove of Iraq war .68+ .36+ .20 .30+ Cells contain probit coefficients with their standard errors in parentheses. Standard errors are clustered on precinct. Coefficients are statistically significantly different from zero at *p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001. Models include controls (not shown) for gender, identification as black or Hispanic, year of survey, and sampling weight (as recommended by Winship & Radbill 1994). Typical voter is at the sample‐weighted mean values for age (46) and %LGB in precinct (3.1%) and modal values for other variables (not a first‐time voter, female, not black, not Hispanic). Predicted probabilities are the medians of 1,000 bootstrapped predictions generated by sampling data by cluster with replacement and estimating probit model. +Zero does not fall within the bootstrapped 95% confidence interval generated about the estimated difference between LGBs and non‐LGBs. 1First‐time voter data are not available for environmentalism and Iraq War attitudes models. 33
FIGURES Figure 1. Geographic Density of Group Identity and Ideology of Group Identifiers, by Voting Precinct source for data: VNS/NEP national exit polls, 1990­2006. Data are weighted. Figures include lowess smoothers with bootstrapped 95% confidence bands. Military Veteran
veteran
1
.5
0
mean ideology of identifiers in precinct
(0 = conservative, 1 = liberal)
0
25
50
75
100
Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual
gay
1
.5
0
0
25
50
75
100
75
100
Born‐Again Christian
bornagain
1
.5
0
0
25
50
% of precinct with identity
34
Figure 2. The political distinctiveness of lesbians, gays and bisexuals source for data: Voter News Service/National Election Pool (VNS/NEP) exit polls, 1992­2006 0
LGB ‐ non‐LGB difference (percentage points)
10
20
30
29.8
Presidential vote
25.6
27.2
ideology
government role
environmentalism
20.5
13.1
4.9
11.2
16.4
24.3
Iraq war
14.7
27.5
same‐sex marriage
24.0
actual
estimates after applying controls
All dependent variables are scored dichotomously (zero=conservative position; one=liberal position). Dark bars are the differences between LGBs and non‐LGBs calculated using weights supplied with exit poll data. Gray bars are “first differences”—the estimated difference between LGBs and non‐LGBs (in percentage points)—derived from probit analyses with controls for sex, age, race, party identification and year of survey as well as (where available) education and income, and (except where it is the dependent variable) ideology. The first differences were estimated using SPost software (Long & Freese 2005) in Stata 10.1. All quantities are statistically significantly different from zero (p < .05) except the estimated first difference associated with the role of government (p = .11). Calculations of statistical significance take into account clustering by precinct. 35
Figure 3. Differences in the Upbringings of Sexual Minorities Compared to the General Population source for data: General Social Survey, 1988­2006. Data are weighted. Differences are statistically significant at p = .02 or less. 0
percent
20
10
30
33.1
raised in fundamentalist religion
24.2
10.9
mother had college degree
17.3
30.9
raised in South
22.2
all American adults
those with same‐sex partners in past 12 months
who believe homosexuality is "not wrong at all"
Figure 4. The Effects of Upbringing on the Political Views of Sexual Minorities source for data: predictions generated by model displayed in Table A3. Predicted prevalence of liberal ideology...
...among those with same‐sex
partners who believe homosexuality
is “not wrong at all"
59.5%
selection effect = 6.1%
...among these respondents had their
upbringing been no different than
that of the general population
53.4%
36