How do South Africans feel about gay issues?

Same-sex marriages

On some of the topics, we do appear to be quite a liberal people. When asked whether same-sex marriages should be legal in South Africa, 21% agreed, this rising to 31% amongst those aged between 18 and 24 years but dropping to 9% amongst those aged 50 years and over. The age differences are amongst the biggest differentiators of all the demographics.

Cape Town is often cited as SA's "gay capital". Whilst it is true that the level of agreement to this question is higher than average in Cape Town at 29%, Port Elizabeth is higher at 46%, with Soweto at 32%. The most conservative areas are the East and West Rand (12%), Bloemfontein (13%) and Pretoria (14%). In the Durban area, 23% agree. So, cities also have quite widely differing views.

These results compare with a figure of 34% reported in a Gallup Poll of 1 000 adults in the USA in January 2000. In the US, if the words "civil union" are substituted for "marriage", the figures rise to the mid-forties, showing that there are two issues at play here: legal unions and marriages with perhaps religious connotations. When one asks South Africans whether gay partners should be allowed to receive the same financial benefits such a medical aid, 38% agree. This jump is similar to that in the US when one moves away from "marriage" to "civil unions".

However, in the US, the figures are quite variable depending on events: the mid-forties figure of 2000 dropped to the mid-thirties in 2003 with the appointment of a gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, the legalisation of same-sex marriages in some parts of Canada, and the US Supreme Court declaring all anti-sodomy laws unconstitutional.

Gay religious leaders

Turning to the issue of gay religious leaders, there is a 22% acceptance that gay leaders are permissible. Age again is a key differentiator with a 26% acceptance amongst those under the age of 34 and only a 14% acceptance amongst the over 50s. Tolerance levels were highest in North-West (37%), Limpopo (25%) and Eastern Cape (24%) and lowest in Mpumalanga (14%), Northern Cape (15%), Gauteng (17%) and Western Cape (19%). At a city level, again, Port Elizabeth was the most accepting (38%) with Soweto at 29%. The East and West Rand were the least accepting.

Adopting children

This is also a contentious issue: 25% of South African adults agree that gay couples should be allowed to adopt children. Soweto (40%), Port Elizabeth (38%) and Cape Town (34%) are in the vanguard here, with Bloemfontein and East and West Rand being the most conservative. This agreement drops considerably amongst people in their mid-thirties and upwards.

Friends and affection

Only 12% of people say that that they have friends who are gay, and only 19% feel that public displays of affection between gay people are acceptable. On the first topic, 25% of Cape Tonians say that they have gay friends, the highest of any city - this may be why Cape Town is seen as SA's "gay capital".

Throughout these questions, females are generally a little more liberal than males, but only by three to six percentage points on average, depending on population group and the particular issue.

Hostility

1. School teachers
A third of people questioned feel that school teachers should be questioned about their sexuality before being hired. Interestingly, there are no differences by age group on this topic. Having children in the home or not was also not a differentiator. Area differences were very city-specific:

Pretoria (45%) and East London (40%) are the most draconian here.
Interestingly, the West Rand (23%) is one of the least hostile here, with Soweto next at 26%.

2. The armed forces
Almost 40% of SA's adults feel that gay people should not be allowed in the armed forces. The Indian community is the most accepting of this at 30%, whereas coloureds are the least accepting at 45%. The East Rand at 48% and South Rand/Vaal at 59% were also very negative.

Is it all about choice?

Perhaps surprisingly, and certainly controversial, is the finding that 45% of adults feel that gay people choose to be gay. This is lower amongst blacks (42%), but, interestingly, younger people are more likely to feel this (50%). Fifty-nine percent of those in Cape Town and Pretoria also held this view - the highest figures for this issue. Bloemfontein (35%) and Durban (39%) were the least likely to think this.

Attitudes to Gay issues by South African adults (% strongly agree/agree)(n=3 504)

Overall responses on all the topics measured are given in the chart below.

Measuring acceptance of gay issues.

All the responses on these and other topics around gay rights and issues were combined into a one-number index. This index measures the extent to which people are hostile to, tolerate or accept the rights of gay people as gay people. This index has an average value of 100: higher than 100 indicates people who are more likely to be liberal; below 100 are people who are more conservative.

The results are given in the table below where one can see that age and city show the largest differences:

This measurement can also be used to divide people up into six segments, depending on their levels of acceptance. So, we find that 4% can be classed as "gay liberated" - the most liberal as regards gay issues. Next, 11% are "gay friendly" whilst 11% are "somewhat accepting". A massive 43% sit on the fence whilst 24% are "gay unfriendly" and 5% are hardline rejectors.

From this classification, we can probably conclude that SA is tolerant rather than accepting.