Scientific Communication about Biological Influences on Homosexuality and the Politics of Gay Rights

Abstract

In recent decades, Americans’ thinking regarding the causes of human behavior has changed considerably. In particular, there has been a swing toward attributing a variety of behaviors to biological factors, and perhaps nowhere is this more evident than for sexual orientation. In this paper, we draw on two overtime survey datasets to argue that new scientific evidence on the biological bases of homosexuality in the 1990s rapidly changed commonly held beliefs. However, because these scientific explanations were perceived to be relevant to gay rights, persuasion tended to be conditioned on citizens’ political values. In short, liberals were considerably more likely than conservatives to embrace biological attributions for homosexuality during this period. Furthermore, these changing—and diverging—causal beliefs about homosexuality appear to have contributed to both increasing support for, and left–right disagreements over, gay rights.