A Gallup poll released in February 2022 revealed 7.2 percent of Americans identify themselves as queer—by which I mean something other than heterosexual; either lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, or any other categories not covered by the first four. The younger the adults are, the more those percentages go up.
- Generation X (which’d include me) is about 3.3 percent non-hetero.
- Gen Y, the millennials, is at 11.2 percent.
- Gen Z is at 19.7 percent.
I didn’t include the stats for baby boomers and silents because—let’s be honest—a bunch of them are still in the closet. Or in denial.
And I have some questions about those Generation Z figures. Because—let’s keep being honest, shall we?—some of the younger adults don’t know what they are. Young people are still figuring it out! Some of them might legitimately be queer. Some might not be, but they’re trying queerness, because being straight hasn’t really worked out for them. I’ve got one coworker who figures he’ll try anything once, and that includes gay stuff, because who knows?—maybe he’s gay. He doesn’t know, and aren’t parents always telling their kids about food, “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it”? So he’s trying it.
Yeah, I can already hear my conservative readers wringing their hands from here: “Woe is us; our nation is going to hell.”
(Relax folks; it was always going to hell. Isn’t that what your favorite End Times prognosticators have always taught? Or were you paying more attention to politicians than them?)
But lemme leap back to that previous comment I made about the baby boomers and silents. ’Cause if you think I was just making a joke about ’em, no I wasn’t. If you think I was just being facetious, I’m really not. There have always been queer people. They’ve been hiding. Those low numbers in those older generations do not mean there used to be fewer of them, but their numbers are growing. They mean many of ’em are still hiding.
Because not too long ago in America, you could get killed over it. Still can. All it takes is someone with hate in their heart, who thinks nobody’s looking, and thinks God’s actually okay with killing people over it. ’Cause you can certainly get that idea when you quote certain anti-gay scriptures.
- Leviticus 20.13 KJV
- If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
There are other countries, like Russia and Uganda and Saudi Arabia, which have made laws based on such scriptures, and will jail and execute you for being gay, and think they’re righteous for doing so. And when you listen to certain conservatives in the United States, they think those countries are right to do it, and wanna know why we don’t do it.
Well duh; because we’re not the nation of ancient Israel. Because their covenant with God is not ourcovenant with God. We don’t even have a national covenant with God. True, one idiot or another claims the Mayflower Compact, or the U.S. Constitution, or the Bill of Rights, is a covenant with God… and of course these things absolutely aren’t. Likewise some Christian yutz might cobble together a statement or declaration or creed, and claim they’re making a national covenant with God, and of course they don’t speak for all American Christians any more than I do.
Our Constitution (specifically article 6 section 3, and amendment 1) establishes no religion nor religious system over this country. The United States may be predominantly Christian, but it was intentionally made a pluralistic society. As such we can have among our citizens and residents Christians and pagans, Jews and Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus, Wiccans and nontheists, and no covenant is in violation. God’s not gonna smite us with tornadoes because we harbor gay people. Nature will, because we won’t stop polluting.
So all those conservatives who imagine God’s gonna be very, very angry with America unless we purge every queer person from sea to shining sea? Man have they got God wrong. There’s an awful amount of projection in their interpretation of him: They are upset and hostile towards non-heterosexuals, so they imagine God must share all their frustration and rage. After all, they imagine they’re tight with God; surely he’s at least as pissed and murdery as they.
And that’s where we are this LGBT Pride Month.