A poll by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) released yesterday has found that 72% of Americans favor passing legal protections from discrimination for LGBT people.

A couple of diarists reported about the poll yesterday but buried the lede in favor of the information of the presidential numbers.

That figure includes 3/4 of people who classify themselves as Democrats and 2/3 of people who call themselves Republicans.

In addition 53% of Americans oppose laws requiring transgender people to use the restroom corresponding with the sex they were assigned at birth, while only 35% who favor such laws. Among Democrats, the split is 64%-27%, while Republicans are split 44%-44% and Independents are 51%-37%.

Unfortunately, over 80% of Americans already think that the federal government prohibits employers from firing gay or trans employees on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

People in their head just logically think, if marriage is legal, then workplace protections must also be in place.

--Robert P. Jones, PRRI CEO

Support for those protections hasn’t actually grown all that much in the past year—just one percentage point, up to 72 percent. (Non-discrimination laws have always been more popular than marriage equality, Jones said; it’s a historical accident that the tougher fight was won first.) But it appears that personal friendships are driving a new awareness of trans issues. In 2015, a Human Rights Campaign survey found 17 percent of Americans knew a transgender person. This year, that figure jumped to 35 percent. Trans rights seem to be following the path of marriage equality—as people came to know the gay people in their own lives, support for same-sex marriages went up.

--Andrew McGill, The Atlantic

Perhaps Americans are eager to support gay rights in theory, but more reticent when an actual proposal lands in their community. But Jones doesn’t think so. Respondents are usually more willing to cop to an unpopular opinion in an online poll versus a live-caller survey, but PRRI didn’t see any disparity between the two methods on questions about gay issues. Support is probably genuine, he concluded; it’s the Republican elites who haven’t caught up with the electorate, starting battles that many voters don’t want to fight.

For elected officials, there is everything to gain and nothing to lose by supporting employee discrimination protections. In a political climate where so much is polarized, the issue of LGBT equality is one issue where both sides are coming together.

--Brandon Lorentz, Human Rights Campaign

To be clear, GOP leaders do have something to gain by opposing gay causes—the support of the religious right. But even that may be changing. For a long time, an individual’s opinion on gay rights was closely linked to their party and their religion. Party identification is still a strong dividing line to this day. Religion is less so. Among every demographic, fewer people see a conflict with their faith and acceptance of gay couples now than they did in 2003. That might not translate into votes yet. But it’s more evidence that change is coming, and ever more rapidly.

--McGill

By a roughly two to one margin, Americans oppose rather than favor allowing a small business owner in their state to refuse to provide products or services to gay or lesbian people if doing so violates their religious beliefs (63% - 30%). Attitudes on this policy are virtually unchanged from May of 2015, when 62% said they opposed allowing small business owners to refuse service to gay and lesbian customers on religious grounds.

80% of Democrats oppose such so-called "religious" exemptions, while 52% of Republicans favor them.

There is a significant disparity in partisan perception of discrimination.

Democrats say there is a lot of discrimination against gay and lesbian people (75%), transgender people (76%), blacks (79%), and immigrants (80%). Notably, fewer than half of Republicans believe gay and lesbian people (42%), transgender people (47%), blacks (32%), or immigrants (46%) face significant discrimination.

I conclude with some cognitive disonance:

Almost half (49%) of Americans say the Catholic Church is somewhat or very unfriendly towards LGBT people, compared to 35% who say it is somewhat or very friendly to this group. Nearly one in five (17%) Americans do not provide an opinion on this issue. Catholics hold more positive views of their own church, with nearly half (49%) saying the church is friendly to LGBT people, compared to 45% who say the church is unfriendly to LGBT people.

Similarly, half (50%) of Americans say evangelical Christian churches are at least somewhat unfriendly to LGBT people, compared to only three in ten (30%) who say they are friendly. More than one in five (21%) people do not provide an opinion. A majority (53%) of white evangelical Protestants, by contrast, say their churches are at least somewhat friendly to LGBT people, while just over one-third (35%) say they are unfriendly.

Oh! Yeah! Clinton leads Trump 48%-35%.