This is the second post in a series on using public opinion polling to assess structural heteronormativity. The first (based on the LatinoBarometer surveys) can be found here.
For today's installment, I collated responses to a "feeling thermometer" from the American National Election Survey, a survey of Americans of voting age conducted to assess a wide variety of attitudes and voting pattern data. For this measure, I averaged responses from surveys conducted in advance of major elections in 2008, 2012, and 2016. Please note that these averages DO NOT use the appropriate weighting supplied with the data, and are not adjusted for anything other than which election wave the data were collected in. Thus, the means may be off what they should be (either higher or lower, impossible to predict), and the confidence intervals are probably narrower than they should be.
The question wording for the "feeling thermometer" is reproduced below, after which a number of groups are asked about - the order of the groups presented is randomized from one respondent to another.
"We’d also like to get your feelings about some groups in American society. When I read the name of a group, we’d like you to rate it with what we call a feeling thermometer. Ratings between 50 degrees-100 degrees mean that you feel favorably and warm toward the group; ratings between 0 and 50 degrees mean that you don’t feel favorably towards the group and that you don’t care too much for that group. If you don’t feel particularly warm or cold toward a group you would rate them at 50 degrees. If we come to a group you don’t know much about, just tell me and we’ll move on to the next one."
"Gay Men and Lesbians"
As before, the states are ranked from least heteronormative rating to most heteronormative rating.
