Taranto on a roll, and Dowdy, too!

Roe v. Gay

Blogger Eugene Volokh looks at a survey on changing attitudes toward homosexuality. Here are the percentages of Americans in various age groups who said homosexual relations were "always wrong" in 1973 and 2002:


Age --1973-- 2002

Total-- 73%-- 55%

18-29-- 56% --48%

30-44 --74%-- 48%

45-59-- 75% --55%

60+ ---89% ---68%



Here's Volokh's analysis:

If you look at the 18-29 age range in 1973 and the 45-59 range in 2002, which represent pretty much the same people (18-29-year-olds in 1973 would be 47-58 in 2002), the percentages are statistically identical, 56% and 55%. If you look at 30-59-year-olds in 1973 and 60-and-over in 2002, which should also be pretty much the same people (since only a small fraction of the 60-plus in 1973 survive in 2002), the change is from 74-75% to 68%, a significant change but a relatively small one.

So the primary reason for the 18% change does not seem to be that adults are hearing more about gay rights claims, seeing more out-of-the-closet gays at work or in social circles, and thus changing their views. There seems to be a modest such effect among those who were over 30 in 1973, but only a modest one.

Rather, the main change is in the views of the new generations (the ones who are now 18-44). And this change started with those who came of age in the 1960s and early 1970s (note that the "always wrong" figure has declined only from 56% to 48% from 1973 to 2002), and therefore seems likely to have been caused by the Sexual Revolution, which predated 1973, more than by the gay rights movement.

This conclusion, although consistent with the data, strikes us as highly counterintuitive--especially if we construe "the gay rights movement" more broadly to encompass not just politics but culture. In the past 20 years or so, there has been an enormous cultural shift, from largely ignoring homosexuality to sympathizing with and even celebrating it.

Part of this was of course driven by pre-existing baby-boomer sympathy, and a large part by the AIDS epidemic, which made homosexuality impossible to ignore. But it's hard to believe that this would have no effect on those who were going through their formative years during this time. Yet that is what the numbers--identical for 18- to 29-year-olds and 30- to 44-year-olds--seem to say.

But there is another possibility. Maybe the pro-gay culture shift has influenced the younger cohort but another factor has pushed the numbers in the opposite direction, resulting in a wash. We are thinking, of course, of the Roe effect.

The 18- to 29-year-old cohort in 2002 coincides almost perfectly with the group born after Roe v. Wade. If, as we have hypothesized, liberal women are more likely to have abortions, then the effect of Roe would be to make subsequent generations more conservative than they otherwise would be. Thus the effect of the court's diktat legalizing abortion nationwide might have been to retard the progress of gay rights.

Abortion Advocates Outsmart Selves

The Associated Press reports on the murder of 24-year-old LaToyia Figueroa; her boyfriend, Stephen Poaches, has been arrested as a suspect:
District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham said Poaches, 25, would be charged with two counts of murder and related offenses for the deaths of Figueroa and her fetus.

Why does the AP calls the younger alleged victim a "fetus" rather than a "baby" or an "unborn child," which would be normal usage given that there's no indication Figueroa didn't intend to carry the pregnancy to term? Well, of course the language is a sop to TWOROTDOLHFCOOTCOTM**, whose entire ideology depends on maintaining the distinction between a "fetus" and a "baby."

The problem is, if, as in the Figueroa case, killing a "fetus" is murder, how can one say abortion is just a choice?

** Those who oppose restrictions on the destruction of live human fetuses, conditional only on the consent of the mother.

This Describes Maureen Dowd, Too

"Though Henrietta says 'Meow' instead of most words, her friends in the Neighborhood usually understand what she is saying."--Henrietta Pussycat biography, "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" Web site