Is Research on LGBTQ Issues Generalizable?: Why Mass Opinion Evolves

• In Event: Sexuality and Gender Identity: Individual Well-being and Public Opinion

Abstract

Mass opinion, as revealed by top-line polling data, does not change substantively across time on most issues (Page and Shapiro 1992). With the exceptions of increasing support for the rights of women, racial minorities, and LGBTQ people, no domestic political issue in the United States has seen rapid attitudinal change in a short period of time prior to 2010. However, in direct contradiction to the general stability of mass opinion, viewpoints on the legal use of marijuana have spontaneously shifted 25 points from 2009 to 2016.
Generalizing from research on LGBTQ rights, this paper hypothesizes that what has made these four issues areas distinctive is that members of the public form attitudes on these issues from information gained through interpersonal contact and entertainment media, rather than from politics and news media. Because of this, attitudinal change is not restricted to solely those high in political engagement, as it is on most other issues.
This paper analyses roughly 50 years (1969-2016) of opinion data on cannabis legalization and immigration from NORC, Gallup, CBS, the ANES, and Pew. It finds a robust relationship between estimates of marijuana use and undocumented individuals in individuals’ social networks, government estimated usage rates at the state level, and support for legalization of cannabis and open immigration during the peak years of the ‘War on Drugs’ through the first successful statewide votes on legalization (1981-2012). Furthermore, these relationships are either stronger or similarly sized among those low in education who are generally inattentive to politics and news and stronger among younger cohorts---identical findings to those on LGBTQ rights.

Author

• Jeremiah Garretson, Cal State - East Bay