WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. adults estimate that nearly one in four Americans (23.6%) are gay or lesbian. Gallup has previously found that Americans have greatly overestimated the U.S. gay population, recording similar average estimates of 24.6% in 2011 and 23.2% in 2015. In each of the three polls in which Gallup has asked this question, a majority of Americans estimated this population to be 20% or greater.
Americans' estimate of the proportion of gay people in the U.S. is more than five times Gallup's more encompassing 2017 estimate that 4.5% of Americans are LGBT, based on respondents' self-identification as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
So, the irony of all of this is that for a group of people who make up approximately 1/22nd of our population, they sure garner a lot of attention, a lot of special treatment, a lot of fanfare, and an almost cult following in the hollywood media culture. So wonder people believe that their numbers are actually much larger than they are.
To put this in perspective. The average person is statistically more likely to be a millionaire than part oft the LGBT community. You are almost twice as likely to meet someone at a Party with a Masters degree than to meet an LGBT person. You are four times as likely to run into a fundamental Pentecostal Christian than you are to run into an LGBT person on the street.
Of course in Hollywood, the only time you would see a Pentecostal character is when it is someone you make fun of (like Sheldon's mother on the Big Bang Theory).
By all accounts society as a whole is way harder on millionaires, Pentecostals, and a whole slew of groups who are by all accounts much larger than the LGBT community. But there is nobody standing up for those groups, protecting them from discrimination, or demanding we rearrange the world for them. The reality is that there may have never been a smaller group provided more specific special treatment than the LGBT community has been provided.
Perhaps instead of constantly complaining about how rough society is on them, they should count their blessing that they are not treated the way many want to treat an average every day Pentecostal Christian.