The Daily Background

Longtime readers know that the Pentagon’s bigoted and discriminatory “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy is one of my pet issues. CNN/OPR today has an encouraging new poll out, showing that a stunning 79% of Americans believe that the unconstitutional policy should be scrapped, and gay and lesbian Americans should be free to serve openly and honestly in the military. Among the poll’s other encouraging findings:

A majority of Americans believe that gays and lesbians could not change their sexual orientation even if they wanted to, according to results of a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Wednesday.

It’s the first time in a CNN poll the majority has held that belief regarding homosexuality.

Fifty-six percent of about 515 poll respondents said they do not believe sexual orientation can be changed. In 2001, 45 percent of those responding to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll held that belief. In 1998, according to a CNN/Time poll, the number was 36 percent.
[…]
On the question of gay marriage, 43 percent of respondents in May said they would not support same-sex marriage or civil unions, which provide many, if not most, of the same legal protections as marriage. Twenty-four percent said they supported same-sex marriage, while 27 percent opted for civil unions.

But a majority of poll respondents — 57 percent — said gay and lesbian couples should have the legal right to adopt children. Forty percent said they should not.

Also among the poll’s findings, 39% of Americans now agree that people are born gay (and thus cannot be “cured” of the “disease” of homosexuality, as Bush’s bigoted anti-science Surgeon General nominee would have you believe), which is up from 13% in a 1977 poll. 42% disagree, and say that homosexuality results from “upbringing” or “environment,” and the rest are undecided. The 39-42 gap is within the margin of error for the poll’s half sample of which this question was asked.

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