Episode 20 – LGBT Rights and Public Policy

[0:00:00 Speaker 0] This’ll is Policy on Purpose, a podcast produced by the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin Way take you behind the scenes of policy with the people who help shape it For more. Visit LBJ dot utexas Study. Teoh.

[0:00:20 Speaker 2] Hi, I’m Angela Evans. I’m the dean of the LBJ School, and this is another segment of policy on purpose, a podcast where we try to bring to you people who are in in the arena and in the arena for good public good and good public policy. So today, I’m very, very pleased to welcome Dr Robert Jones, who wants to be called Robbie. And so I will do that on his instruction. Who is the CEO of the founder of the the Public Religion Research Institute. I wanted to get that right, cause I always think about the initials first. So welcome. And we just had a wonderful session with students and community leaders looking at Stonewall 50 years later. And so I really am so pleased that you could spend some time with us to see afternoon.

[0:01:06 Speaker 1] No, thanks. I’m thrilled to be

[0:01:07 Speaker 2] here, so I want to start with something pretty general, you know when we start thinking about the United States and the founding principle of separation of church and state and all the tube in and do you really believe we can actually get a separation of church and state?

[0:01:22 Speaker 1] Well, you know, it’s always been a tricky balance. A zoo, you know, Here’s one thing I think is different, though we have always had a kind of white Protestant majority that has never really been threatened by ways of immigration. Now we’ve had plenty of national freak out moments from waves of immigration. But nonetheless, it wasn’t the case that ways of people from Ireland or you know who were Catholic or ways of Jews from Eastern Europe really ever threatened to tip the scales in terms of the demographic majority or even political power in the country. And so I think there’s a way in which where we are today is different than any other generation has faced. On this question, it’s no longer theoretical question whether we wanna have kind of respect religious liberty and hold separation of church and state. It’s now actually a question where the demographic majority has some skin in the game because we’ve just really in the last 10 years moved from being country that was majority white and Christian. No one is no longer a majority white Christian. So now there really is, um, the case that, um, you know, it’s not just inviting somebody to pull up a chair at a table we own. Ah, but it is trying to make room around a table that really nobody owns anymore, and that’s a really different place to be.

[0:02:43 Speaker 2] You know, I think about that, and it’s really true. My grandparents came from Italy and they were Catholic and, you know, they just assimilated. And it wasn’t this. I don’t really I never really sense that there was this us and them. It was like you went to church and you did your thing and, you know, you had your perspective, but the fifth that the president of this country is set on the separation of matter what your religion is, or no matter what your collective approach to a spiritual being, a spiritual values, that’s something we’re always every country has to deal with. But in our country think this isn’t be even more interesting because that’s kind of where we’ve come from. That’s been our roots in the way we think. And so I just like to get your perspectives on. How do we use the power of that and at the same time not create victims in this?

[0:03:34 Speaker 1] Well, I think it’s right. I mean, I think that, you know, one away thinking about the story of American history is to think about Ah, I was trying to make good on the principles that we say were the founding principles of the country. Right. So, um, slavery, right? Yeah, something that we somehow made the Constitution work with until we had amendments that made clear that it didn’t work with it. And we’ve always been, I think, trying to figure out how do we live these things out? And I think we’re at a moment where you know, this is something, Really, But can one thing just kind of point back to your grandparent’s? She said, Yeah, eso You know, when your grandparents came to this country when they got their immigration form, if I got my dates right, um, they would not have been able to check Caucasian. They would have had a separate box to check. That was probably Italian that was separate than white on the immigration form. And so there was a win, which they got brought in as, um and there was like, as you know, like high anti Catholic sentiment in the country in the late 18 hundreds and through the 19 twenties.

[0:04:40 Speaker 2] You know, that’s true. But I have to tell you that the it never came up is something that they were concerned about. It was almost like, Okay, we’re here. What we’re gonna do is we’re going to assimilate. I mean, my you know, my grandmother was illiterate. Me, she she didn’t she couldn’t read or write. But for her Children, she wanted my mother s generation to say, Okay, we’re gonna work here, We’re going to assimilate. We’re going to speak English, and this is what we’re gonna dio. So they never really said, Oh, we’re, You know, we’re sort of set aside because you know, we’re in ghettos or cause they were or where, you know, were labeled this for some reason that never really entered the picture. Maybe because they didn’t know what are. People weren’t talking about it as such. It was It seems to be very different now because people have much more information. Ah, much more able to work in groups, through our social media and through the media in general than they had in the early 20th century. When they came. Yeah, I think

[0:05:34 Speaker 1] the assimilation pressure isn’t what it waas right. That and I think it is again because of this shift that, you know, I mean, we have this term like white Anglo Saxon Protestant wasp, right? You know, And the reason why we have that little shorthand is because that was a very powerful group that was controlling pretty much everything in the country. And eso WASPy America. Assimilation is always, always has to have a target, right? And so the question is assimilation Toward what? Yeah, and it was always basically toward that. WASPy normal was the was the thing. Access to power, access to education, access to jobs. That was all sort of toward that. Norman, I think that also is gone today, right? There’s not this kind of sense of Oh, I have to assimilate toward that. Toward that norm, people are holding more onto their own cultural traditions, and I think it’s because we have moved where that norm is no longer really calling all the shots. So there’s not a real need to assimilate toward that norm in order to find acceptance, to find kind of pass into upward mobility.

[0:06:35 Speaker 2] So in some ways, that sort of around the verge of something very different that no other nations really experience where we came from, these routes and our we’re looking at, we were talking about a pluribus unum. You know, we’re just supposed to be out of many one. Well, how do you maintain that? You know when there isn’t the one. There’s a lot of different things that people do and removing towards some kind of a national value system and national. The national principles of how much you behave is an American, and that’s really pretty cloudy right now in terms of having something that everybody agrees to. I think they think most people like your surveys have shown, you know, I think the enduring the endurance of the Bill of Rights, thank God, his continued. But I think people are still questioning a lot of things that we just took for granted before.

[0:07:21 Speaker 1] Yeah, I think that’s right. I mean, I think you the growing divide. I think even between the two political parties are along these kinds of questions, right? It’s less about. Do you support abortion or not our marriage quality or not? And it’s much more really. The deeper fault lines today, I think, are increasingly around. What vision of America do we have? Is it a kind of diverse, you know, ethnically diverse, religiously diverse country? Or is it kind of an older model of a kind of waspy nation and everybody else kind of just five whatever space they can? Um, and I think the two political parties even the last election cycle, right? The mantra as make America great again right is all about this kind of backward, looking back to the fifties kind of kind of thing when kind of WASPy America was more controlled and versus, like, Hillary Clinton had this forward pointing arrow to the future. Um, and her slogan was stronger together, right and so is very explicit, and I think we’re going to see this more and more a two parties become demographically homogeneous and then attached to that are two very different. And in many ways, um, you know incongruous images of what the country should should be.

[0:08:42 Speaker 2] The thing to me that was very interesting about your work it’s interesting about your work is that Americans in general often don’t line with where some of the far right is going with regard to, you know, our fundamental rights. You know LGBT Q or abortion, where the Americans are generally are more generous about this. And you said something that was very interesting to me. It was like It’s gonna take us two presidential cycles for the electoral process to catch up with where Americans are be up. It’s a long time, and we have just seen it like just in a few years. There’s there’s a lot of chaos that can be created with regard to really understanding some, a measure of stability and the things that Americans have supported. And I I worry sometimes about whether or not what happens in that in ERM for us to catch up for the political process, to catch up to where the American public is and why that is an obvious in our political landscape right now.

[0:09:40 Speaker 1] No, I think that’s right. We are at this, like liminal space where you know, we’re at this tipping point that a lot of other ways to think about it. But where the, you know, the ah, the oldest, sort of like sunsetting and the new is struggling to be born, you know, And we’re, um, in that space. I think you know, the last election cycle was won by 77,000 votes of the Electoral College in three states, right, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Michigan. It was only 10,000 votes in Michigan that this point like, 05% of the vote, I think in Michigan, so very, very close. And that’s where we’re at, you know. And so we have this time where yeah, the country has moved demographically annals key issues to a certain place. But because of differential turnout rates, older white Christian Americans tend to turn out and vote at rates higher. So we end up with an electorate. Yeah, that lags battle almost a decade behind where the country actually has already moved.

[0:10:40 Speaker 2] I want to pick your brain about something on The thing that really baffles me is why the young people are not voting. So you think like this. Get out the vote. And, you know, obviously the work in the primaries. No, there was a really important the primary votes air really essential. Um, we have students here with passion and purpose, and they vote. And I think most of the youth, they’re really passionate about something. I don’t understand why they do not exercise the fundamental right to vote. When in other countries and other nations, they die for the fight to way. We’ve preserved it their way. But there they walk, you know, days to get to vote from your from your travels and things that you’ve looked at. What do you see? Some of the fundamental reasons why we’re not getting an engagement of the younger

[0:11:26 Speaker 1] voter. Yeah. No, it is a bit perplexing, some to some extent. So we did a big study with the Atlantic magazine last year, and we took a look at we actually big over sample of people under the age of 30 to try to figure out what was going on. So a couple of things going on, like first, is to say that, um, historically, people under the age of 30 have always lagged behind older Americans and their voting patterns. So this is in some ways not new with this generation. Um, and but here’s a couple things we found out when we ask people about how, um, the most effective ways to create change in the country. What we found is that older Americans by far, and we have, like five different choices. You can volunteer for a campaign you can, you know, give money. You can vote. And, ah, and older Americans by far said voting is the way you effect change in the country. Younger Americans were significantly less likely to say voting was the way to effect change in the country and more likely to say getting involved with the issue campaign, um, was the way to bring about change. And about 10% of them said even activism online was a great to bring about change. So part of it is, I think, um, less confidence that voting is the path to change, coupled with the challenges of our voting system, right? So there’s some real barriers to younger people voting Yes, eso Absentee voting is like crazy complicated to figure how to do well. There’s deadlines requesting forms ahead of time, and the number people who know how to do that and then remember to do it is tough even if you’re not in a different district. If you move, your RV moved around even locally, very much, which young people tend to do right very often. Um, you know, you may forget where your polling place was. You may show up the wrong polling place. There’s lots of little hiccups. And so, you know, four states that don’t have same day registration don’t have automatic voter registration. That’s a hit. And it’s mostly hit two young people when those laws are in place, the kind of help thes

[0:13:34 Speaker 2] air, the same young people that can get together on a dying with social media. So, you know, a little part of it is like, No, we’re not letting him off Exactly. You know, we’re smiling here, but, uh, you know, they’re just, you know, it’s not easy, you know? So some things that are not easy are worthwhile, and they need to do it s o. Part of it to me is that I feel they don’t They don’t like two choices, but at the same time, you know they don’t want to be engaged, civically or they do to a certain extent. And so we’re caught in this trap of how you push thes students out or the young people. I calm students because they’re my students, but my students are really good, but still, there, their generation, how you push them out to say you’re gonna have to work hard at this, you’re gonna have to be involved. You’re gonna have to hit the streets. You’re gonna have to pick candidates that you test, and you just it’s not a choice to say, Well, there isn’t anybody I want to vote for, So I’m not voting there to me is just anathema to him. We are,

[0:14:29 Speaker 1] Well, you know it would. It would absolutely change the landscape. I mean, the thing to remember is that the kind of millennial generation which now goes all the way up to like late thirties now is the largest demographic cohort in the country, right? So they would swap the votes of seniors if they turned out at anywhere near the comparable rates. So like in the midterm elections, for example, young people in a pre election survey, young people told us that 30 35% of people under the age of 30 said they were absolutely certain to vote. Turns out the the exit polls have them at 31%. That’s pretty close. That’s actually up 10 points from the last midterm election in 2014. So that’s actually quite a bit of the increase right from 21 to 31. But seniors were about 60% turnout among seniors, right? And so it just it didn’t close the gap because everybody turned out at higher rates in the midterm election. So we still haven’t seen this kind of adjustment where there’s disproportional turnout s so that they would actually impact the vote. But, you know, again, in places like Florida, you know, well, Texas, Florida, Georgia all had very tight races, statewide races and, um, in 2018 and in every single one of them. If the Under 45 crowded turned out it anywhere comparable, we would have had different candidates win because they vote 3/4 Democratic when they vote.

[0:15:53 Speaker 2] Yeah, that’s what I think. That’s our big challenge to figure out how to make that happen and make people you know understand this. Is there their fundamental right, Um so there’s there’s a couple of things that you said and that I have been thinking about to, You know, when you make, we make some see changes in the terms of how people approach issues. Now we just get involved in the but how they look at some very controversial issues, often times it’s because it’s been a the expense of suffering of others or a big event where there’s been, you know, riots or killings or people being beaten up or something. And, you know, you would think by now that we’d be able to talk about this and he have a sea change that doesn’t take 20 years. That doesn’t require some kind of a major event or a major, whether it’s not life threatening and may be, you know, the way you live threatening. And I’d like to get your perspective on that. In terms of all that, you seen all the big things that have happened from the civil rights era, too. Now there is it’s causing people harm in order for us to to turn things around, you know? What do you think is behind that? You

[0:17:02 Speaker 1] know, I think it is comes down to like human, human nature and, you know, like, really that one thing. So we interview north of 100,000 people a year at Pier A, and we ask about a whole range of things. And one of things I’m always reminded of. Um, is that, you know, I live in D. C. It’s kind of a political bubble. Everything is something people pay attention to. You know, we’re reading like Twitter all the time, And, um, it’s a good reminder that, like the rest of the country, does not live in that kind of political bubble. And the extent to which politics intrudes into their consciousness is not that deep or that often, Um And so I think that’s part of the challenge. Or it’s a big country, and people are struggling to make ends meet and get their kids to school and, you know, put food on the table. And that’s the priority, I think. And so it is, I think often, um, a surprise, even to me, after looking at these numbers so long, like how big an event it takes that kind of impact, the cup, the public consciousness and you know I still, you know, I think a lot of scholars, you know, pretty agreed that, like if we didn’t have those images of fire hoses and German shepherds attacking

[0:18:17 Speaker 2] Oh, that’s

[0:18:18 Speaker 1] like teenagers and kids again. Women? Yes. In Birmingham. Yes. We might not have had, you know, the kind of uprising, but

[0:18:26 Speaker 2] is putting your fellow person in extremist? You get it because we don’t want anybody be an extremist like that. Most of us different. But then how do we get that feeling of being taking care of each other or making sure that we have, ah, society where that’s where you’re safe, where it wouldn’t take that. So sometimes I think about you know, how we can do this and how we can help the students think about their roles. Is future leaders in getting this done without us having a major catastrophe? A Or, you know, a major, you know, people’s suffering of people. I think that’s not the way we should be doing this. Well, you know, I do

[0:19:02 Speaker 1] think I’m I think things like and that’s going to sound nerdy now, But, uh, we are at the university, so I’ll be nervous. I mean, I I do think that opening people’s perspectives up with research, reading literature like it does expand one sensibility of what else is happening in the world. And, um, I do think that education, you know, plays a plays a deep role in that we did a survey last year and California of focus on Californians who were working and struggling with poverty. And one things we’re trying to do is just really use data to paint a portrait of what someone’s life is like when they’re working two jobs, Yes, they got four kids, and, you know, they’re struggling to figure out how to take care of the kids. And one of the things that stood out to me is, um, you know, we found that, um that 1/3 of Californians, for example, we’re in the workforce and still struggling with poverty and that things like a $400 emergency expense would send them over the A S s. So you know when you hear that, right? Especially if you’ve grown up a little more privileged than that. I think it is a way that, even in a small way, it kind of opens your, uh, perspective a little bit. And you know, if you continue to feed that, I think it does broaden ones, you know, mind in a way that on broadens your field of concern. I think so. I think that education is part of the,

[0:20:32 Speaker 2] you know, I agree with you, and I think that is general education. So it’s not just the students to come to a university or college or, you know, in our in our public school system toe open this up to But generally, how do you keep up with these This pieces of information and knowledge when you’re out like you say, you’re working two jobs you have. You know, for kids, you’re like a washing machine breakdown away from really not being able to do it. You don’t have, ah lot of time to think through these things. And so how do we make it easy for them? For me, I think with the students, you know, it’s our job on many fronts. One is, what’s the evidence you’ve got to hear, especially now, with so many things flying around that are not true. So what is the real evidence on this? Number two. What are different perspectives on this. And so it’s not just your perspective, because people really in major policy arenas don’t really care about your opinion. They want to know what your learned conclusion is on breaking them away from. That is really important. But the other thing is how we teach them to have these discourses with people that are very different than they are or having discourses with people that they think that they’re actually helping. And there they’ve decided what those people need rather than consulting with them. We’re trying to break through. All of this has been built up toe when they come to us, and I find that to be something that’s surprising and challenging.

[0:21:48 Speaker 1] Yeah, and I, you know, I think I think it’s right. We, uh, just bring some more data and because we have another survey we do with the Atlantic was on pluralism and how often people encounter people different from them sweats, making me think about, um and it’s still the case today that we we asked about health and you encounter people who have a religion from you. A different race from you, um, political orientation from you and across like a number of measures is still the case that about 1/4 of the country tells that they seldom or never cross those lines. Um, and so you could think about that. Maybe a glass half full or half empty. It feels like a lot of people it does to me with diverse is the country has come that there’s still 1/4 that kind of say, Yeah. No, mostly I’m kind of in this bubble, um, and again. And, you know, I think certainly a big university, right is a place where many people, for the first time, we’re gonna be in a dorm room or in a classroom And here, perspectives that they had, like, never thought about

[0:22:47 Speaker 2] before. Yeah, we have Teoh. We were talking about the Sweetman time of this for several months in one of the things you talked about. How do you suppose people to different ideas And how do you have those ideas sit side by side without a judgment of which is a better idea or the other? While it happens in educational institutions, public educational institutions and libraries, You know where you can go look at the books or, you know, go through you know, your if it’s going to be an electronic found say, Oh, I’d like to try that. But getting mawr of that into sort of the mainstream of who we are I think would be really important. I see 25% is high given, you know, the interconnectedness of this country. And, you know, in terms of our highways and our internet highways, etcetera, I find yet

[0:23:26 Speaker 1] still kind of a low bar to it. We’re really just about how often do you encounter any and mean You had have a deep relationship, just like contact?

[0:23:35 Speaker 2] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to switch something cause I don’t want to get this finished without talking about you. Sure. And Robbie tell us how you came to do this and how you decided that you wanted to, you know, really start something. You know, like the PR. I Yeah. What? What got you going?

[0:23:54 Speaker 1] So we’re celebrating our 10th anniversary this year? No, no, it’s great. Um and, uh, so you know it. Really? I’m a Nehwal academic. Eso I have a PhD in religion for Emory University

[0:24:06 Speaker 2] and have been on academies, and you’re well versed in you. He have, you know, great publications. That’s fun. That’s interesting. Yeah. Okay, you made the switch. So you

[0:24:15 Speaker 1] know what it really came down to, is I? I wanted to make the switch to the think tank world because I really wanted put my work on the ground in a way that I was having a little trouble doing in the academic setting, but ah, but when I when I did that, um, what I realize is that I was always looking for data that didn’t exist. And so, after a couple of years, a kind of banging my head on the wall and kind of in the space of kind of religion, cultural politics is the space. And I was really doing work in, um, a little light bulb finally went off, and Oh, that means there’s like I need right here and put in business terms of market, you know, for this. And so, um, we, you know, I gathered aboard and, you know, get some initial employees and we launched, you know, the end of 2009 and have sort of just grown it out. But our mission really is Teoh have journalists have the best data that they can have that kind of our first clientele. But also, policymakers and the general public really understand, can aware religion and culture and worldview how those things connect to policy issues.

[0:25:25 Speaker 2] So what do you see your challenges in the next five years just to where you want to be in where you want to take this. You know what would be an ideal in your mind? Image of PR I in your role in the next five years.

[0:25:38 Speaker 1] Here’s my thunder elevators. Think, um, no, in all services. So I think the, uh uh, we’re kind of at a transition point, you know? And so we started as a national organization doing national survey work. And increasingly, in the last couple of years, we’ve been moving. We’re here in Austin, Texas. Um, you know, just released some new data here that we’re increasingly doing work in states on DSO. I think that is the next thing, because increasingly, I think many of these battles are being fought out in local and state legislatures more than they are in Congress in D. C. And I heard that today. Sure. Yeah. And so I think North Carolina, Georgia And it’s particularly places where there have been a lot of demographic changes. The states were moving from maybe red to purple and the political map. But the demographics are shifting, um, as well. And dynamics like the urban rural divides and states, the generational divides in states and around issues I mean, are are big issues that will be kind of digging in our these kind of cultural fault lines. So, uh, LGBT issues immigration, reproductive health and rights. Um, criminal justice reform, access to voting, Um, and kind of just in general people’s reactions to the demographic change and kind of how people are doing well or not and adjusting to all of this change on the ground.

[0:27:04 Speaker 2] No, I congratulate you. I wish you the best. And we certainly need more people like you and your organizations to help us find some very good information that we can help decision makers make decisions that are that are based on fact and in our authoritative. So thank you so much, Robbie, for joining us today. Spend a pleasure this time has just flown by. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

[0:27:27 Speaker 0] This is policy on purpose. A podcast produced by the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin Way take you behind the scenes of policy with the people who help shape it. To learn more, visit LBJ dot utexas dot edu and follow us on Twitter or Facebook at the LBJ School. Thank you for listening