🚀 go-pugleaf

Mike-

I was not suggesting that students of LGB politics study family structures --
although that might interest some of our colleagues. I would raise questions
of this sort:

Why are people prejudiced (or not prejudiced) toward LGB people?

What is the nature of mass attitudes? Are such attitudes structured? By what?
Are they related to political participation, turnout, electoral decisions, etc.

What are the mechanisms by which LGB people come to view themselves as a politi
cal class? Is it related to political identity or consciousness? How does it
comparre to our understanding of ethnic and racial politics?

Do LGB people share a sense of common grievance? Is there a political agenda? H
ow widely is it accepted? What structures it? Is it related to partisan
behavior or attitudes? How does such a sense of shared grievance develop?

What sorts of jurisdictions enact non-discrimination legislation? How does that
fit into our more general theories of same?

What about legislative roll-call?

What about congruence between leaders and followers?

Why does it push buttons for the radical right?

How does discovery of sexual orientation fit with our theories of socialization
into politics?

Is there an identifiable gay vote?

Why does there seem to be a relationship between sexual orientation and posi-
tion on a left-right continuum?

How does one pull a good sample of LGB people?

What are the consequences of the assumption of universal heterosexuality on
the psychological, social, and political development of lgb people?

And so on.

One need not be a homosexual to study these questions.

Ken