2003/01/01 by Gregory B. Lewis · 5 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · Health Professions · #LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy #African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues #Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health
paper · doi:10.1086/346009
openalex publication_date 2003/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
Black homophobia has been cited as a contributing factor in slowing mobilization against AIDS in the African-American community, as an obstacle to black lesbians and gay men in coming to terms with their sexuality, and as a challenge to the legitimacy of the gay rights movement. Yet evidence that blacks are more homophobic than whites is quite limited. This article uses responses from almost seven thousand blacks and forty-three thousand whites in 31 surveys conducted since 1973 to give more definitive answers on black-white attitudinal differences and their demographic roots. Despite their greater disapproval of homosexuality, blacks' opinions on sodomy laws, gay civil liberties, and employment discrimination are quite similar to whites' opinions, and African Americans are more likely to support laws prohibiting antigay discrimination. Once religious and educational differences are controlled, blacks remain more disapproving of homosexuality but are moderately more supportive of gay civil liberties and markedly more opposed to antigay employment discrimination than are whites. Yet religion, education, gender, and age all have weaker impacts on black than on white attitudes, suggesting that black and white attitudes have different roots