This Makes Me Wanna Poll Dance

I love a good poll.Stripper pole. Flag pole. Bean pole. Someone from Poland.

All good.

But this is a CBS poll. And it says that some 77% of Americans say they know someone who is gay or lesbian. This is up from 42% back in 1992. Which means more of us are out, more people know about us, and the tide of ignorance and intolerance is changing. And this new "knowledge" of The Gays has helped to create a more positive perception of homosexual, um, relations between consenting adults.

This increase in LGBT visibility, which is poll-speak for LGBT coming out, seems to have created a more positive perception of homosexual, um, relations. Now, just 43% of Americans see homosexual relations between consenting adults as "wrong"; a drop of 19 percentage points from a Gallup poll taken in the dark ages of 1978.

What seems odd, though, is that there has been a decrease, albeit a slight one, in the percentage of Americans who do not object to homosexual relations compared to January of last year, when 54 percent said they are not wrong; still, nearly 48% say they see nothing wrong with homosexual relations.

If you break the numbers down further, people under 30 tend not to object to homosexual relations, while those over 65 are likely to be disapproving of the homosexual lifestyle, as it were. Democrats, liberals and moderates are naturally more accepting, while Republicans and conservatives goosestep to an intolerant drummer.

But here's the part that needs to be said:

Those Americans who know an LGBT person are less likely to disapprove of homosexual relations than those who do not. And we all know what that means.

Come out.

Now.

Be yourself, be open, stop hiding. That's the only way to get people to see that being gay isn't wrong or bad or evil or sick, it's just being gay.

So, come out.

Now.