Left-right disagreement over whether people are “born gay” isboth a cause and consequence of polarized gay rights attitudes

Despite the recent rise of same-sex marriage and other gay rights, a substantial number of social conservatives in the US still believe that homosexuality is either a choice or a result of a person’s upbringing, or both. In new research, Liz Suhay examines how attitudes towards whether homosexuality is innate have evolved, finding that over the past thirty years liberals have been more willing to accept new scientific information on its innateness because it justified their support for gay rights. Conservatives, on the other hand, have been more likely to reject this new information since it undermined their existing opposition to gay rights.