6
the general principle of equal rights for gays and lesbians in jobs, and on the other, the specific
question of school teachers.
Rights for Gays and Lesbians in Canada and the U.S.
1988/89
2000/01
Canada
U.S.
Canada
U.S.
Equal rights in job opp’ies
71 %
92 %
85 %
Employed as elem. sch. teachers?
45
42
67
56
Source: Gallup, for U.S. dates are 1989 and 2001; for Canada 1988 and 2000.
One 1996 poll of Americans showed 58 percent opposed to the organization of gay/lesbian clubs
in public schools, and 63 percent opposed to teaching about the gay and lesbian “lifestyle” in the
curriculum.
2
Four years later, the Kaiser Foundation reported that 64 percent of respondents to a
survey approved the inclusion of discussion about sexual orientation as a normal part of some
people’s sexuality, but the question was only about the teaching of sex education classes.
Anxiety about “exposing” young people to homosexuality is reflected in the declared
preparedness of fully 32 percent of respondents to the same survey to not allow children, if they
had them, to attend an elementary class if their teacher was openly gay or lesbian.
The Attitudes of Young People
The attitudes of young people are especially important for any consideration of school climates,
and display intriguing contradictions. All surveys indicate that they are much more likely than
their elders, and more likely than young people a generation ago, to have positive attitudes
toward homosexuality, regardless of the question. Shifts in general public sentiment that so
marked the 1990s were especially pronounced among young adults and adolescents. In 1999, a
UCLA survey of first year college/university students across the U.S. showed that only 30
percent supported laws prohibiting homosexual relationships, down from 53 percent in 1987.
Even more dramatically, a 1999 Kaiser Foundation survey of teens aged 13-19 showed that 54
percent “don’t have any problem with homosexuality” – in stark contrast to the 17 percent who
answered thus in 1991.
On the other hand, the Kaiser survey also showed that a very substantial minority did have a
problem problem with homosexuality. It is also reasonable to see many of those who said “no
problem” did so with a form of dismissiveness that is hard to interpret as unambiguously
positive. What seems widespread among adolescence, in fact, is the coexistence of favourable
views on political issues with personal discomfort. One 2001 national survey of high school
seniors, revealed support on sexual diversity issues ranging from 66 percent on the highly
controversial question of gay marriage to 88 percent on the protections of gays and lesbians
against hate crimes.
3
But in that same survey only 43 percent said they would be comfortable
with a gay lab partner, only 38 % with a gay teammate using the same locker room, and only 32
% socializing alongside gay couples at a party. One mid-1990s national U.S. survey of teenagers
Convention