Ideological Basis for the Gay Rights Movement

The gay rights movement is one of the major social changes of the last twenty years, drawing comparisons to the movements for women and African Americans in the 1960’s. Changes in laws enacted by the legislature and the judiciary followed a massive shift in public opinion on gay issues, most notably marriage. This paper utilizes an experimental method to determine which of three arguments, focusing on a biological basis for homosexuality, a small government model and the number of gays in the population, is most persuasive on the whole and is most persuasive to different populations. The results of this method suggest that each argument is at least somewhat persuasive to groups already inclined to support gay rights, meaning they likely played a role in previous public opinion change but that groups that are known to be resistant to this social chance cannot be persuaded by these arguments. Analysis of correlations and regressions generated from World Values Survey data is then utilized to determine the impact of belief in science on support for gay rights in order to determine if results about the role of biology in support for gay rights could be generalized on a global scale. The analysis of this data suggests that this relationship is strongest in the United States and is minimal in many areas outside of the West.