A new national survey conducted online in mid-August by Witeck-Combs Communications and Harris Interactive shows two–thirds (67%) of GLBT adults say that things in the country are going in the right direction, compared to 45 percent of heterosexual adults.

This is an increase from June 2009 when 56 percent of GLBT adults said that things were moving in the right direction.
 
When it comes to their outlook on the economy and their own personal financial situation, GLBT adults also appear somewhat more confident then their heterosexual counterparts. A majority (57%) of GLBT adults said they expect the economy to improve in the coming year, compared to 45 percent of heterosexual adults. In the next 6 months just looking at gay and lesbian adults, 31 percent expect their household’s financial condition to be better, compared with 24 percent of heterosexual adults. The survey also found that more than two-thirds (69%) of GLBT adults would rate the overall job President Barack Obama is doing in handling the economy as excellent or pretty good, while only 38 percent of heterosexual adults agree.
 
The new nationwide survey of 2,709 U.S. adults, (ages 18 and over), of whom 378 self identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (which includes an over-sample of lesbian and gay adults), was conducted online between August 10 and 18, 2009, by Harris Interactive, a global market research and consulting firm, in conjunction with Witeck-Combs Communications, Inc., a strategic public relations and marketing communications firm with special expertise in the GLBT market.
 
While Americans are closely monitoring all aspects of the economy, GLBT adults continue to express more confidence in what the future may hold. Four out of five (82%) GLBT adults said they trust in President Barack Obama to do what is right for the American economy, compared with 60% of heterosexual adults. Nearly seven out of ten (69%) GLBT adults said they are confident that the White House and the Administration will produce policies to help fix the economic crisis, while a slender majority (51%) of heterosexual adults agree. Also, a majority (64%) of GLBT adults said they think the stimulus plan passed earlier this year has been successful, compared with 39% heterosexual adults. More than half (53%) of GLBT adults, contrasted with 30% of heterosexuals adults, rate the overall job President Barack Obama is doing in handling employment/unemployment as excellent or pretty good.
 
In contrast – when critical of the President’s leadership, one-third (35%) of heterosexuals adults said they blame President Barack Obama for the country’s economic problems, yet only 13% of GLBT adults agree. Also, one-fourth (27%) of heterosexual adults said they have no trust at all in President Barack Obama to do what is right for the American economy; only 7% of GLBT adults agree.
 
“It’s not surprising to see the higher marks that GLBT citizens give to the President and his Administration; last year’s exit polls, for example, suggest that at least three out of four gay and lesbian votes were cast for President Obama,” said Wesley Combs, President of Witeck-Combs Communications. “Keep in mind, this survey also addressed overarching national issues, and not policy matters affecting GLBT voters specifically such as gays serving openly in the military, or employment nondiscrimination. As we see our way through this difficult economic climate, we know that GLBT households are feeling the same stress and sacrifices as other Americans. Nonetheless, the optimism and confidence shown by GLBT households is very telling, and policymakers and business leaders should take strong note.”

“It will be a selling point when it comes to trying to lure people with same-sex partners who are being wooed for a job,”  M.V. Lee Badgett, a University of Massachusetts economist who studies gay and lesbian issues, told Reuters.

Gay and lesbian couples who are part of the “creative class” – highly educated professionals, entrepreneurs and artists – were 2.5 times more likely to move to Massachusetts in the three years following the approval of same-sex marriage, according to a study released in May by the Williams Institute of the University of California.

The relocating couples were more likely to be younger and female than before same-sex marriage was approved.

Even straight members of the “creative class” regard states with marriage equality as more appealing places to live.

“It broadly suggests you have an environment in which people who are seen as different are accepted,” said Gary Gates, the UCLA demographer  and the lead author of the study.

See the full Reuters story here.

A new national study has found that gay couples plan to spend 50 percent more on home improvement projects than non-gay couples over the next 12 months.

These study was undertaken by the Chicago-based, online research agency, Socratic Technologies and Target 10, a gay and lesbian marketing agency based in New York.

“Gay couples planning home improvement projects lead the way when it comes to spending,” the study’s authors said in a statement.

LGBT homeowners intend to spend an average of $2,077 within the next 12 months while non-gay couples intend to spend only $1,384, according to the findings.

“With 63 percent of gay homeowners intending to start home improvement projects within the next 12 months, it’s not surprising that more than half also plan on purchasing more new home appliances or furnishings within a year’s time.”

The kitchen in particular is high on the “to do” list.  In the next 12 months, 34 percent of gay homeowners reported that they intend to replace a kitchen appliance vs. 27 percent of straight homeowners.

“Gay men and lesbians have a reputation of being major home improvement shoppers and this survey reaffirms that,” said Matt Tumminello, president of Target 10.  “Renovating and refurbishing homes is in many ways a part of gay culture.  Even in bad economic times, they are not stopping.” Over the last three years, 72 percent of gay homeowners had made home improvements.

The survey also uncovered some interesting findings on how consumers shop.

“We found that gay consumers are shopping in more places than straight consumers to find the items that they want.  This includes both at retail stores and online,” said Jeff Kerr, vice president of Socratic Technology.

Gay consumers reported higher rates of shopping and purchasing at Home Depot, Lowe’s, Sears, Best Buy and the warehouse shopping club, Costco.

“They are savvy shoppers who are determined to find exactly what they want and at the best price,” Kerr said.

The survey also found that gay consumers are looking for high-end products.

Homeowners were significantly more likely to seek out products from top-tier brands such as Viking, Sub Zero, Jenn-Air and Miele.  And while non-gay homeowners showed a willingness to use less expensive materials during the economic downturn, this is something most gay consumers are not willing to do.

But the survey discovered that most companies have been slow to go after gay consumers.

“In the last few years we’ve noticed very few household appliance and home improvement brands taking steps to court gay consumers and no one brand has emerged as a market leader,” said Tumminello.

“Gays and lesbians are famous for their brand loyalty and an opportunity exists to fill that void.  Those first in, win.”

This national online survey was conducted March 17-30 among members of the Socratic Forum and the Socratic/Regent Media Gay Consumer Panels.  Interviews were completed by 301 gay and 310 straight homeowners.

©365Gay.com 2009

Steele said that was just an example of how the party can retool its message to appeal to young voters and minorities without sacrificing core conservative principles. Steele said he used the argument weeks ago while chatting on a flight with a college student who described herself as fiscally conservative but socially liberal on issues like gay marriage.

“Now all of a sudden I’ve got someone who wasn’t a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for,” Steele told Republicans at the state convention in traditionally conservative Georgia. “So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money.”

As Steele talked about ways the party could position itself, he also poked fun at his previous pledge to give the GOP a “hip-hop makeover.”

“You don’t have to wear your pants cut down here or the big bling,” he said.

Vermont and Iowa have legalized gay marriage in recent weeks, and a Quinnipiac University poll released in April found that 57 percent of people questioned support civil unions that provide marriage-like rights. Although 55 percent said they opposed gay marriage, the poll indicated a shift toward more acceptance.

The chief of the Republican National Committee has been criticized by some social conservatives in recent weeks after GQ magazine quoted him as saying he opposed gay marriage but wasn’t going to “beat people upside the head about it.”

Steele, a Catholic and former Maryland lieutenant governor, was elected chairman of the committee earlier this year.

Rachel naturally led off Tuesday’s show with the Movement that Launched a Thousand Giggles. She contrasted President Obama’s grownup response to the nationwide outbreak of public teabagging with her own “prurient, juvenile approach.”

Wait. That doesn’t mean the prurient, juvenile approach to teabagging is stopping, does it? Because that would really choke me up.

In his statement on Tuesday, Obama explained the reasoning behind the stimulus package and said that the key to tackling the deficit is to get health care spending under control. He also answered concerns from the left and told everyone to chill out on sending SWAT teams to zipline into banks and nationalize them.

Former DNC chair Howard Dean joined Rachel to break down Obama’s strategy and agree that maybe we could be more competitive in the global market if we didn’t have to calculate the cost of treating the average hangnail in Fabergé eggs.

Illinnoying
Rod Blagojevich, still unaware that everyone in the solar system has heard the tapes and that long, convoluted statements do not help your credibility, pled not guilty “begin the process of getting the truth out.”

He has also taken terrifying steps toward his ultimate goal of staying on your television all day, every day until you break and go Amish.

No He Cantor
Eric Cantor set up an Economic Solutions Center website to “dispel the myth” that the Republicans have no new ideas. Spoiler: Tax cuts!

It’s so easy, even cartoons can do it! Assuming those cartoons all have jobs and no trouble with their mortgage payments like the ones on Cantor’s site.

Rachel welcomed Jared Bernstein, Vice President Biden’s economic policy advisor, to essentially ask him what the hell.

Bernstien gave a nod to conservative thinkers want to debate economic policy for real, and audaciously suggested that the cartoon Hooray for Tax Cuts website was not a serious response.

Breaking News
Rachel took a pass on the Ms. Information segment to report on some breaking news, but there was no shortage of divine fish.

Mohammad El Gharani has been in Guantánamo Bay since he was 14. He should have been released in January, and yet he is still there.

Tuesday night, he somehow managed to call the Al Jazeera network when he was supposed to be calling a relative. Which is surprising, because why didn’t he use that phone call to order ice cream cakes for everyone?

Pirates attacked the Liberty Sun, a container ship loaded with humanitarian aid and sailing under the American flag. The pirates shot up the bridge with automatic weapons, but no one was hit. Looks like you merchandisers of  “fun” pirate memorabilia can plan to keep it in storage for a while.

Team of Rivals
Oh, dear, the tea parties are getting ugly. Have you people lost all sense of decorum? Raise your pinkies!

Rachel welcomed Stephen Gordon of the Libertarian Party of Alabama to talk about how the Libertarians started the whole tea party idea are thoroughly pissed at the Republicans for sitting down at the table uninvited when they won’t even help stuff the Dormouse into the teapot.

Gordon, who clearly took his job so he could stop explaining that people don’t have to call him Mr. Johnson, brought his own teabags and seemed to be hip to the prurient, juvenile magic of the situation.

GOP in Exile
John McCain seems to be sliding into the terrific phase of life that failed Presidential candidates hit where they just relax and start saying whatever the hell they want. And what he wants to say is that Sarah Palin is not one of the rising Republican voices.

Rachel looked forward to Ms. Palin setting an example for us all by handling the situation with dignity and restraint.

OddBaseBall
Rachel welcomed her pal baseball nerd Keith Olbermann to talk about yesterday’s baseball strangeness.

Among other items, the Yankees got stomped so bad that they put their first baseman in to pitch and had three beer guys, a greenskeeper, and the organist warming up in the bullpen.

Chicago continued to class it up by hanging a dead goat outside of Wrigley Field. It’s good to know my old neighborhood hasn’t changed. Hope you’re still enjoying peeing on my building, Cubs fans!

Cocktail Moment
Determined to keep kicking the City with Big Shoulders while it’s down, Rachel served up a Chicago Fizz to numb the pain while she informed us that Rod Blagojevich has been recruited to appear (assuming he’s allowed to leave the country) on NBC’s upcoming I’m a Celebrity…Get Me out of Here.

While I admit that it would be gratifying to see Blago get dropped into the Costa Rican jungle, I’m pretty sure any pleasure would be far outweighed by the knowledge that he’ll be earning up to $80,000 an episode. Excuse me: I need to go punch the walls for a few minutes.

On the upside, Rachel did note that if he gets the job, she and Blagojevich will be colleagues. Have fun at the holiday party, Rachel!

And don’t bring anything for the Yankee swap unless it’s f’in valuable.

Oh, and sending CNN’s Ed Henry home with trying-not-to-cry face for asking one too many jerk-toned questions about the President’s reaction to the AIG scandal.

MSNBC political analyst Eugene Robinson joined Rachel to talk about how members of the general public seem to be handling the economic crisis in a more adult manner than much of the press and show off his supercool new glasses.

Conservademned?
In her discussion of the Republican response to the President’s budget, Rachel made me rewind my DVR twice to make sure she had really said that they had a “collective war metaphorgasm.”

It was funny, but I later had to do a lot of fancy work with an ice pick to drive out the images that were rising unbidden to my brain Eugh.

Moving on from the shudder inducing, Rachel touched on the fact that the Republicans can afford to be over-the-top, since the real make-or-break power may have fallen to Senator Evan Bayh (D-Indiana) and the group of “moderate Democrats” he has formed to keep our current legislative process filibusterrific.

Rachel welcomed Jane Hamsher of firedoglake.com, who suggested that following the lobbying money might give one a clue as to why there’s a sudden cadre of Democrats who are working to slow down legislation that banks don’t like.

That is so cynical. Maybe they just watched It’s A Wonderful Life a bunch of times and got all bank-sentimental.

Ms. Information
Rod Blagojevich is doing a little fill-in work at WLS radio in Chicago. See what we’ve done? We kept feeding the monster and he got a taste for media. I hope everyone enjoys him in MSNBC’s new 10:00 slot.

Remember when Bush declared war on Tara? Why does he hate Gone with the Wind so much? Shortly afterward, he declared the War on Terror.

Rachel gave us a rundown on the many wars after that, and then reported that, whatever else happens in Iraq and Afghanistan, the War on Calling Wars What They Really Are is going to be dragging on for a while.

Overseas Contingency Operation? For crying out loud, guys – the point of Newspeak is that it’s supposed to be pithy. Anyway, I’m sure Rachel will tell us more about it in her next story on the PlusPeace O-Coop.

GOP Exiled?
Rachel reported on the fact that now that Dick Cheney is out of the White House and has been forced to release their pets, Republicans have begun to send him some attractive gift baskets full of shut the hell up.

Cheney has been using his power to bend light waves and spontaneously swivel cameras in his direction to get all over the news lately, and Republicans hate it because they would rather be associated with someone who has a more warm and likable image, such as Calvin Coolidge or the anglerfish.

The thoroughly enjoyable Ana Marie Cox of Air America stopped by to talk about the Republican leadership vacuum that has left Cheney and a chronically inaccurate radio host as its most recognizable faces.

Both women are enthusiastic policy nerds and expressed a fondness for the two-party system and the results of meaningful debate. But only Cox would go out on a limb and admit to loving “crotchety old guys who Twitter”.

I’m a fan of Ms. Cox, but I’m kind of hoping Cheney starts Twittering just to see if she has to recategorize her heart.

GOP in Exile
Turns out Pele wasn’t sure that Bobby Jindal got the point she made in Tonga, so she blew up Alaska’s Mt. Redoubt, which had been dormant for 19 years.

Can we put somebody on a detail to make sure he doesn’t give any speeches about how it’s silly to monitor for asteroids, torrents of fire, or marauding sea monsters?

Wall St. Coup
Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone dropped in to help Rachel strike some productive fear into the hearts of the nation by pointing out that the only people who really understand current finance are the very same guys who took our economy for a joyride, blew out the engine, stripped off the chrome, and left it burning by the side of the road but for some reason got to keep the rims.

I hadn’t realized that things had actually gotten so bad that AIG figured out a way to choose their own regulators. But things had and AIG did, so we need everyone who isn’t already chin-deep in corruption to figure this stuff out.

Attention pharmaceutical companies: Now is your one chance to rehabilitate your image. Whip up a “make high finance not boring” pill and save the nation.

Side effects may include nausea, dry mouth, fury at being so thoroughly hoodwinked, and compulsive urges to give Jim Cramer atomic wedgies.

Until next time, I hope your day is doubleplusgood and volcano-free.

Since she’s brought up the foolishness of this logic before without apparent effect, this time Rachel broke out a handy teaching prop. God, I hope it comes back.

Considerably less delightful was her latest Big Terrifying Graphic on unemployment. Hey, Rachel! Speaking of the Depression, remember that “nothing to fear but fear itself” thing?

Air America’s wonderful Ana Marie Cox dropped in to talk about the newly-minted fiscal conservatives’ refusal to look at what did and didn’t work with the last time this happened and wonder if it’s real conviction or if they’ve just chosen the worst possible moment to paint themselves into that particular rhetorical corner.

Rachel and Ms. Cox didn’t solve the economy or come up with a new workable platform for the opposing party, but they really seemed to have fun talking. More visits from Ms. Cox, please!

Scrub. Rinse. Repeat.
Science continues to creep back out of Bunsen burner speakeasies and into the light of day. President Obama is lifting the Bush-era restrictions on stem-cell research. Hope the 8-year slowdown on Alzheimer’s research didn’t inconvenience anybody.

Steele Waters Run Deep
No, her first name ain’t Baby, it’s Rachel. No word on whether or not that’s Miss Maddow if you’re nasty. Rachel reported on Chairman of the RNC and daily dose of surreal comedy magic Michael Steele.

In addition to his overuse of the word “baby,” Mr. Steele seems to have paid a mineral trading firm for “political consulting.”

If you’re thinking that a boring old financial scandal doesn’t sound like it has that special Michael Steele flair, you may just be right. Jayne Miller of WBAL-TV in Baltimore has been following the money trail, and believes that during the 2006 election, the cash may have been used in a way that is just as outrageous as you might expect, but way less funny.

I would like to add my own small voice to Rachel’s call for Mr. Steele to come on the show and present his side.

Please, Mr. Steele. We may not have much time left together. Give us just this one thing.

Ms. Information
Kim Jong-Il is scaring the uranium out of everyone again and you know what? I’m glad.

Sure, kids today have to worry about famine, melting ice caps, the Ebola virus, and crushing overpopulation, but I had to watch “The Day After” and whatever the other six nuclear winter miniseries were that had been designed to give us ulcers by the time we were 14.

It’s shared experiences like this that bring the generations together. In lead bunkers to fight over iodine supplies.

Talk Me Down
Greg Mitchell joined Rachel to talk about the nasty wet cough the print media seems to have had lately. While he pointed out some bright spots in the new media, I don’t think Rachel is quite sold on the rigorous investigative journalism standards of BeastMaster694U.

One More Thing:
The Senate Intelligence Committee will be investigating the CIA’s interrogation program. Among other things, they’ll be determining whether investigators got any useful information from their “enhanced interrogating”.

Based on similar interrogation programs from the past, I’m guessing that the CIA got a lot of good tips on who attended which Sabbat meetings, and whether they flew on broomsticks or simply rode on the backs of demons.

GOP in Exile
Speaking of which, it seems the new vision for the Republican party still seems to rely rather heavily on eye of Newt.

Rachel Re:
Did you go out for brunch this weekend? If not, STOP READING AND GO DO IT RIGHT NOW. After this segment, you are done with brunch.

In case you’re still wavering, I’ll mention that Rachel’s lead-in involves Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”.

Now that you’re full of what I hope were very carefully prepared eggs and pancakes, you can watch this segment, during which Rachel will get you behind the concept of tough government regulations in a way you’ve never been before. Sure, global economic meltdown can get you thinking about regulation, but it’s the phrase “rat sausages” that really drives the point home.

Anyway, for some reason Rachel seems to think that letting food companies pay private auditors to say that their food is safe is maybe not the best idea in the world.

Well, sure, if you’re picky. I prefer to think of sweeping up and reusing salmonella-laden peanuts as “enhanced flavoring techniques.”

Besides, if we really want to build up immunity against the new drug-resistant superbugs that are developing from corporate agriculture’s overuse of antibiotics, we’re just going to have to start contracting them and fighting it out. Mettle up, America!