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06/23/2014
FRC is an extremely deceitful org: Example #1,234,234,921
In its Friday wrap up, the staff of the exceedingly anti-LGBT Family Research Council wrote the following about nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people:
No wonder the President had to resort to an executive order on special treatment for homosexuals. Turns out, the American people aren’t nearly supportive of his agenda as the media led us to believe. In a Huffington Post poll, only 50% of Americans support an ENDA-type (Employment Non-Discrimination Act) law, which gives preference to homosexuals and transgenders in the workplace. Congress had been reluctant to act on ENDA, and now we see that leaders are more in line with the majority of Americans than the President, which jumped ahead of the legislative branch to impose those rules on federal contractors. So much for the groundswell of support for measures that crush the constitutional freedoms of both employers and employees. Most people apparently think the current anti-discrimination statutes are strong enough. [FRC]
Only thing? FRC's take on the data is beyond distorted, even for a pro-discrimination special interest group like FRC. Here is what the YouGov/HuffPo polling really shows:
Let's take the last question first. It shows that a whopping 62% believe that employment discrimination based on being gay or lesbian is already illegal, with an additional 25% who aren't sure. That's a massive swath of Americans who think that an ENDA-like law is already on the books, at least at it applies to LGB (if not T).
Then take the most damning middle question. There we find a simply massive number of Americans, 76%, saying that such discrimination should be illegal. There's an additional 12% there answering in a noncommittal way. With education, its certain that we could pull over a fair number of those respondents as well. This seismic support is the figure that is the most pertinent—which is why FRC completely ignores it.
But now let's look at the first question, the one and only part of this poll upon which FRC did place its discriminatory focus. In the "favor" category, you do have 50%, which is pretty much what FRC stated. That alone is bad news for FRC, since equality would always win out over discrimination, even if the break were at a mid-split. But when you factor in the other two questions, culled from these very same poll respondents, you have to believe that the 50% is lower than it would be precisely because so many people believe this kind of discrimination is already illegal. I mean, if 76% say it should be illegal and 62% believe it already is, then the only (or at least most reasonable) way to interpret the first figure being at a lowered 50% is that there is a lot of confusion among the 12% who answered "not sure." I'm thinking many of these "not sure" (and even some of the somewhat oppose) answered that way because they think there already fair protections and that the poll question involved something above and beyond an ENDA-type law.
Although the most damning figures for FRC, throughout, is in the opposition responses. The opposition is just not there. Even in the first question, if taken at face value, only 38% voice opposition (and only 22% strongly). In the second question, only 12% think this kind of discrimination should be legal. And let's be clear: that 12% in the "should be legal" and that 22% in the "strongly oppose" camps (sans the ones who "opposed" because of confusion about current law) are the ones who make up the FRC base. That base is shrinking every day, and this YouGov/HuffPo poll makes that clear. This poll shows that opposition to ENDA (or at least an LGB version, to be fair) is simply not there.
FRC can spin it however FRC wants to make its already-converted chorus believe that Congress is "more in line with the majority of Americans than the President." But isn't FRC's insistence on putting their lies above the truth a big reason why they've turned off so many Americans already? I mean, equality would win anyway, because treatment people decently has a way of rising above toxicity. However, our opposition's unscrupulous way of flat-out lying in the name of God certainly hasn't helped its "moral" cause or its "values" claims. FRC just might be the worst.