Homo Sum:
humani nil a me alienum puto

Or, at least, fears people like me.

(That image links to the source data, as well as a ton of other polling information¹.)

I’m actually pleasantly surprised by the first few rows there–I am perhaps cynical, but I expected significantly lower numbers. Of course, this is people reporting on what they say they would do, not numbers on what they actually do in practice, but still, the numbers are good. And actually, if people are overreporting their behaviour on the not-a-jackass side then that’s probably a really good thing, since it means that social pressure is on people not to be a jackass.

The results start to get scary down around “Married three times”. I’m going to leave that alone, and instead focus on those last two rows, which I find pretty depressing.

I’m not surprised that almost half of the american electorate say they would not vote for a qualified candidate, if he or she were gay. I’m disappointed, but I’m not surprised–after the 2004 elections and the GayFear that Rove and the wacko Christian right built up, it’s not too surprising. I guess the note of hope here is that there was a time not too long ago when the results were similar for “black” or “a woman”, so there is some hope that we will continue to progress on this one as well.

I wonder how different the results would be in Canada. Aside from Alberta, we’re certainly much more liberal about homosexuality, and even have openly gay politicians in Cabinet-level positions, so I hope our numbers would be much more liberal.

The last one though both surprises and disappoints me. It surprises me because I thought that Gay Marriage was the biggest boogeyman of the american electorate, not the Godless. Apparently I was wrong. I am the category that MORE THAN HALF OF AMERICANS would note vote for, regardless of qualifications. I am the boogeyman.

These results, of course, mean that for the forseeable future we’re going to continue to see candidates showing off their religion, and probably religiosity. Sigh.

It disappoints me for the obvious reasons. Firstly, because as an atheist and rationalist myself, it saddens me to see this reflection of the populace’s reactions to people who don’t need a religion. Secondly because this is a result in a country founded by people fleeing religious persecution, where separation of church and state is baked into the constitution–if the populace in a country with that heritage can’t separate legislative competence (i.e. “state”) from need for a religion (i.e. “church”) then what hope is there?

Actually, Spain gives me some hope.

Again, I wish I had Canadian numbers for comparison.

1. The host site doesn’t let me link directly to this specific poll, so if you’re not reading this post on the day it was posted, you will need to scroll down to the section headed “USA Today/Gallup Poll. Feb. 9-11, 2007. N=1,006 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.”(back)

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