Ann Coulter went to 'Homocon' organized by GOProud a gay group of Republicans whose goal is to elect Republicans and made the following observation:
“Marriage ‘is not a civil right — you’re not black,’ Coulter said to nervous laughter,” Smith reported. “She went on to note that gays are among the wealthiest demographic groups in the country. "Blacks must be looking at the gays saying, ‘Why can’t we be oppressed like that?’ ”
The gay wealth myth has been used against the gay rights movement since it first evolved in the early 90s. It was promulgated by gay publications whose aim was to gain a larger share of the advertising pie. Those publications commissioned studies about their readership and then they ballyhooed the results. Some took these results as evidence that gays were a wealthy minority. Many gay people embraced the myth because it is nice, in face of adversity, to pretend that you are special somehow, somehow better than your oppressors.
Unfortunately, homophobes and anti-gay types also embraced the myth. In 1996 in the Roemer v Evans case on Colorado's Amendment 2 which attempted to eliminate anti-discrimination protections in some Colorado municipalities, supporters of the amendment cited these marketing studies to attempt to show that gay people weren't really oppressed. In fact, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia cited those marketing studies in his dissent. The Court ruled 6 to 3 to overturn Colorado's Amendment 2.
However, the marketing studies only reflected users of certain gay media, and not the whole gay community. In much the same way, the readership of magazines like Time and Newsweek are also substantially wealthier than the average American.
The reality is Gay men suffer significant job and wage discrimination, and lesbians do not earn more than straight females:
Is job-related bias a problem? A new study by economist Dr. Lee Badgett and her colleagues at UCLA indicates that it is. Their report, Bias in the Workplace: Consistent Evidence of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination, was released last week and is available from the Williams Institute’s web site.
Dr. Badgett and her coauthors reviewed findings from more than 50 studies that addressed employment discrimination among sexual and gender minorities. As would be expected in any such review, the methodologies and results varied considerably across the studies. The data clearly show, however, that workplace discrimination is disturbingly widespread.
Some of Dr. Badgett’s main findings:
Gay men earn 10%-32% less than similarly qualified heterosexual men. Data for lesbians don’t reveal a consistent pattern of pay differences from heterosexual women but, like heterosexual women, lesbians earn less than men.
In fact, gays and lesbians are MORE likely to live in poverty, particularly lesbians and gay minotities:
We find clear evidence that poverty is at least as common in the LGB population as among heterosexual
people and their families.
After adjusting for a range of family characteristics that help explain poverty, gay and lesbian
couple families are significantly more likely to be poor than are heterosexual married couple
families.
Notably, lesbian couples and their families are much more likely to be poor than heterosexual
couples and their families.
Children in gay and lesbian couple households have poverty rates twice those of children in
heterosexual married couple households.
Within the LGB population, several groups are much more likely to be poor than others. African
American people in same-sex couples and same-sex couples who live in rural areas are much
more likely to be poor than white or urban same-sex couples.
While a small percentage of all families receive government cash supports intended for poor and
low-income families, we find that gay and lesbian individuals and couples are more likely to
receive these supports than are heterosexuals.
Another study authored by Badgettshows very high rates of poverty for LGB people:
Using national data from the NSFG for people ages 18-44, we find that 24% of lesbians and
bisexual women are poor, compared with only 19% of heterosexual women. At 15%, gay men
and bisexual men have poverty rates equal to those of heterosexual men (13%) in the NSFG.
Even the most optimistic numbers show that gays and straights have about the same poverty rates.
This report here titled Income Inflation: the Myth of Affluence among Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Americans completely debunks the idea that gays or lesbians earn more than straight people. The researchers looked at several surveys including Census data, and in each case, gays and lesbians had incomes that were less than their straight counterparts. It also showed that gay, lesbian, and bisexual range of income were distributed at about the same rate as heterosexuals. More:
M. V. Lee Badgett’s 1995 analysis of the GSS found that gay men who worked full-time earned as much as 27% less than comparable heteros exual men. Lesbians who worked full - time earned roughly the same amount as heteros exual women. Marieka Klawitter and Victor Flatt’s study of the Census data found very similar results. Men with male partners earned 26% less than married men with the same education, location , race, age, number of children, and disability status did. But, as in the GSS, wo m e n with female partners showed no diff e rence in ea r n i ngs compared to heteros ex u a l women once the other factors are taken into account. The findings for gay men strongly suggest the influence of workplace discrimination.
More evidence of anti-gay workplace discrimination:
Gay men, but not lesbians, face discrimination at work, earning up to 23 percent less than married men in some jobs, according to a new study.
Researchers at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Whittemore School of Business and Economics spent two years analyzing labor and wage data from 91,000 heterosexual and homosexual couples collected by a 2004 U.S. census.
They found that gay men working in management and blue-collar jobs make less money than straight men due to discrimination by their employers
"It was surprising to see how consistent it was that gay men tended to be more discriminated against in traditionally heterosexual male dominated professions -- blue collar, labor, and management too," researcher Bruce Elmslie, professor of economics at UNH, told Reuters.
The study found that gay men who live together earn 23 percent less than married men, and 9 percent less than unmarried heterosexual men who live with a woman.
They looked at the top 10 occupations that gay men and lesbians tend to be in and found this discrimination showed up most clearly in management and blue-collar, male-dominated occupations such as building and grounds cleaning, maintenance, and construction.
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