A Gay By Any Other Name

I mourn the dearth of great, eloquent polemists, both for and against my positions. Without well-crafted arguments, semantics and histrionics rule:

A new CBS News/New York Times poll released this afternoon shows 57% of Americans approve of "homosexuals" serving in the military. Change the word "homosexual" to "gay men and lesbians" and the support jumps to 70%. The change in support holds when respondents were asked whether they think "homosexuals" vs. "gay men and lesbians" should be allowed to serve openly in the U.S. armed forces.

On the "serve openly" question, 44% were in favor when the word "homosexual" is used, and 42% were opposed. When that word was swapped for the alternate "gay men and lesbians" wording, support for serving openly jumped to 58%. Just 28% were opposed.

I am perplexed. Is our nation's bigotry so debase as to be semantic?

Contrast this statistic to the arguments held over at my favorite naval blog, Information Dissemination, where two people who agree on repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" can disagree on how it should be argued ([1] vs [2]). Well enough, but neither argument relies on a term. Sadly, the rights of a minority might ultimately depend on what they are called. And, like any minority, the gays can be called a great many things...