Out & Equal, a national nonprofit promoting GLBT equality in the workplace, recently released the results of their 2010 workplace survey (1). Most of the news was good, very good: 78% of straight respondents said that employees should not face workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation, and when gender identity was added to the equation, support was still 73% (so trans-inclusivity for ENDA doesn't require expending any political capital).
However, I've repeatedly stated that one of the biggest problems the GLBT community faces is that while we enjoy majority support from the general public for most of our most important goals, much of that support is abstract ("soft") whereas much of our opposition is concrete ("hard"). One form of softness in support is a failure to realize that there really is a problem. Sometimes that can turn around quickly; look at the media coverage that suicides due to homophobic bullying are now getting (I have no reason to believe that there's been a real increase in such suicides, just that they're now starting to show up on the general public's radar. I doubt last September was any better than this September).
And the Out & Equal survey shows that we've definitely got a failure-to-recognize problem when it comes to ENDA. I've known for a long time that a lot of straight people mistakenly believe that it's already illegal to fire, refuse to hire, or otherwise make negative employment decisions regarding someone just because they're gay. I did not, however, know just how many "a lot" was. As Out & Equal's press release stated:
However, there seems to be an education gap among adults about ENDA and how current law touches the lives of many LGBT Americans. More than three out of five – with 62% - heterosexual adults did not know that under federal law today it remains legal for an employer to fire someone because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.
Of course, we GLBTs know better, right? Well, sort of:
Almost half – or 47% - of LGBT adults also did not know.
Hey, 53% was good enough to get Obama into the White House, wasn't it?
Look, it really shouldn't be any surprise that we're unable to get legislative traction on our issues at the Federal level when we suffer from a combination of ignorance and apathy so bad that I had to coin a new word for it. Someone is really asleep at the wheel. Almost all the general public knows we can't serve openly in the military (and nearly 80% think that's a Bad Thing). I'd hope none of us don't know that. Almost all the general public knows we can't get married in more than 5 states and DC (and roughly half think that's a Bad Thing). We all know that. Somehow, anti-DADT and pro-marriage activists managed to get the word out. I think that's because there are specific activist groups dedicated to military service and marriage, but the ENDA effort has been largely left to general-purpose groups like HRC and NGLTF.
ENDA seems to suffer from the "it's such a good idea, it must have already been done" syndrome.
(1) For some reason, the press release announcing the survey results doesn't seem to have made it onto Out & Equal's website yet. Therefore I'm quoting from a quote of it on the Miami Herald's Gay South Florida blog.