{"id":15749,"date":"2013-06-18T00:01:18","date_gmt":"2013-06-18T05:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/as-more-americans-have-contacts-with-gays-and-lesbians-social-acceptance-rises\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:30:51","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:30:51","slug":"as-more-americans-have-contacts-with-gays-and-lesbians-social-acceptance-rises","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2013\/06\/18\/as-more-americans-have-contacts-with-gays-and-lesbians-social-acceptance-rises\/","title":{"rendered":"As more Americans have contacts with gays and lesbians, social acceptance rises"},"content":{"rendered":"

An overwhelming percentage of Americans (87%) say they know someone who is gay or lesbian, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey<\/a>. Twenty years ago, far fewer (61%) say they had a gay or lesbian acquaintance, according to an NBC News\/Wall Street Journal survey.<\/p>\n\n

Nearly a quarter (23%) say they personally know \u201ca lot\u201d of gay or lesbian people, while 44% say they know some, and 19% have only one or two gay or lesbian acquaintances. Overall, nearly a third of Americans (31%) say they know no one who is gay or lesbian (12%) or have only one or two gay acquaintances (19%).<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

About half of Americans (49%) say that a close family member or one of their closest friends is gay or lesbian. And nearly a third (31%) say they know gays or lesbians who are raising children.<\/p>\n\n

The survey also found that 68% of those who know a lot of gays and lesbians \u2014 and 61% who have close friends or family members who are gay \u2014 say they support same-sex marriage. (See our interactive \u2013 \u201cChanging Minds: Behind the Support for Gay Marriage<\/a>.\u201d)<\/em><\/p>\n\n

A separate Pew Research survey<\/a> found that LGBT adults believe that greater social acceptance of them over the past decade has come as a result of more Americans knowing someone from their community. Seven-in-ten LGBT adults say people knowing someone who is lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender helps a lot, and 24% say this helps a little.(The survey of the general public asked only about gays and lesbians). Read more<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About nine-in-ten Americans know someone who is gay or lesbian, and about a quarter say they personally know \u201ca lot\u201d of gay or lesbian people<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":null,"sub_title":"","_crdt_document":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"relatedPosts":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"bylines":[{"key":"929f432323ce9207df15df1834384812","termId":859}],"acknowledgements":[],"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[]},"categories":[],"bylines":[859],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-15749","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","bylines-bruce-drake","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states"],"label":"Short 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