BY BTL STAFF
WASHINGTON D.C. – A recent polling by Democracy Corps has found that 59 percent of voters are less likely to support candidates who oppose non-discrimination protections.
Polling shows strong bipartisan support for LGBT non-discrimination protections, including nearly two-thirds of likely Republicans voters. The results come just before a new federal LGBT non-discrimination bill is expected to be introduced in Congress.
The survey also found that 64 percent of likely Republican voters support protecting LGBT people from workplace discrimination compared to the 90 percent of Democrats who support the same protections. Eighty-four percent of college students, 73 percent of non-college voters and 70 percent of observant Christians also favor protecting LGBT people from discrimination in employment.
The HRC reports that while millennial voters supported Obama in 2008, many of them voted Republican in 2010, 2012 and 2014 signaling a frustration with the slow pace of change.
Results from this survey are consistent with past surveys; in 2011, 79 percent of voters supported ending workplace discrimination.
"Opposing LGBT non-discrimination protections is costly and will grow costlier by the day," said JoDee Winterhof, HRC vice president for policy and political affairs. "The overwhelming majority of voters who believe that LGBT people should be protected from discrimination in the workplace – a value that reaches across party lines – also makes clear that the time to pass explicit, comprehensive LGBT non-discrimination protections is long overdue."
In March, polling conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for HRC revealed that nearly two-thirds of LGBT Americans have faced discrimination in their lives, with LGBT people reporting workplace discrimination the most frequently experienced form of discrimination.
