U.S. News and The Daily Beast came out with an interesting survey for Martin Luther King Day. I have to give it credit when it comes to ranking the 3 most populous Mormon States (Arizona 43, Utah 44, Idaho 45) close to the bottom of the list of "The Most Tolerant States".
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-01-16/ranking-the-most-tolerant-and-least-tolerant-states/7/

For Utah: Population in support of same-sex marriage is 22%. The lowest of all States! Arizona 48 percent, and Idaho comes in at 33 in this same catigory. Lower in general than even the states ranking lower in tolerance overall.

I have problems with the methodology. Really, Wisconsin number 1? California? NEW JERSEY?

Clearly Massachusetts is number 1. We, after all, have an attorney general with her eye on taking down DOMA, and have had equal marriage since I was in high school. And Provincetown in and of itself should count for something...

Concerning Utah, ranking at the bottom of the population in support of same-sex marriage with 22 percent being for it. Only Mississippi ranks as close with 28 percent.

As for California being one of the most tolerat, it could be disputed, but I know race relations have been worked on a great deal and laws reflect that fact. It's not perfect by any means, but considering the large population, it is a melting pot as compaired to Massachusetts.

It's not my survey, and from reading the bloggers, you wouldn't be the only one to disagree with it.

California has San Francisco, West Hollywood, Palm Springs, Laguna Beach, Guerneville, & etc. In my beloved Sonoma County, we have the most Lesbian couples per capita of any county in the U.S.. Since Prop. 8, the gay community has moved the state to now have a plurality in favor of Gay Marriage. We're the most culturally diverse of all the states. We are the most tolerant concerning medical cannabis. And California has the highest percentage of state population that is GLB, as well as the highest total of GLB (over twice that of #2).

Yes, there are very tolerant places in CA, but there are some places that are not tolerant at all.

I lived quite comfortably in Orange Co. as an out Gay man. The conservative places were holes like Fullerton and Garden Grove. Sacramento, which as you know is in the center of the state has more GLBs per capita than any other city in the state.

Anecdotal story. A few months ago I was at the Yerba Buena Center in Downtown San Francisco, where some friends and I were attending the Lines Ballet. Before the show, my companions stopped for some tea, and I took a seat on the outdoor patio to smoke my legal, Doctor recommended Medicinal herbs.

Several minutes into my therapy I was visited by one of San Francisco's finest. He asked to see my "card" which shows that I have a current Doctor's recommend, which I gave him. He looked at the card, commented on how great the organization that issued it was, returned the card to me, then spent the next 12 minutes dogging the stupid drug laws, and lazy cops on the force. It was great. He was so nice I wanted to share (but didn't... I'm not crazy). I was given no attitude, no warning, no ticket. He didn't take me to Jail, he didn't even take my medicine. It was a thoroughly enjoyable encounter followed by a fantastic evening at the ballet.

I loves me my California.

Though you may be able to live in OC comfortably, it is still quite Conservative.

you may also want to look at a map to see just how much of California voted for prop 8, including Orange County.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/cal/la-2008election-prop8prop22,0,6153805.htmlstory (take a look at the map using results by county)

Sorry, CA and Orange County just are not as progressive as you would like to think. There are large sections of CA that are quite anti-gay.

Just a hint, most of my over 25 years as a gay activist was in California, starting in Orange County. Oh, yes, I live quite comfortably in Utah as a gay man, that does not make Utah gay friendly, nor does your living comfortably in OC make OC gay friendly.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2011 05:16AM by MJ.

That might just have tipped the gay-friendliness balance...

:-)

Orange COunty has 3M people, so to be fair, you need to break it down even more.

There are some very progressive areas in Orange County and some not so progressive. For example Laguna Beach and Irvine are both very progressive.

No, I do not need to break it out further. Laguna beach represents less than 1% of OC's population, the progressives there have almost zero impact on the political slant of Orange County.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2011 11:08AM by MJ.

...you have the University of Wisconsin/Madison. I don't know how it is now, but in my day it was one of the most liberal college campuses in the country -- on a par with Cal, Colorado, and Oregon.

Jan. 1, 2009: Est. population, 5,628,000; Members, 24,019; Stakes, 6; Wards, 41; Branches, 27; Missions, 1; Percent LDS, 0.43, or one in 234.

http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/58735/United-States-information-Wisconsin.html

Notice that the east coast of Wisconsin has the largest concentration.

As a fellow New Englander who works in Mass (and only recently moved out of state) and lives in RI.

No, Mass is as tolerant as you'd like to believe. Once you get out of Boston, it quickly gets very intolerant - of race, of sexual orientation, and of faith.

Half the state's population lives within the 495 loop, and votes pretty progressive. Look at the makeup of the state senate and house -- almost entirely democrats, and not fake dems either.

Yeah, there's some pockets of conservatives (I have family in North Adams) but they're not like southern conservatives that want to impose a value system. They are true New Englanders who follow the social-libertarian ideals (see: every piece of legislation ever passed in Maine, until the French Catholics suddenly came out to vote on 1).

We're so far ahead of other states that the Human Rights Campaign doesn't really have a gay agenda here, and has moved on to tran-rights instead.

And I don't think the north should be punished for being pasty, as the californians implied...guess what, we didn't have a history of slavery, so there's not the black population like the south or the chinese population like in california. We're really effing far away from the mexican border, so there aren't as many latinos. In fact MA's highest percentage of illegal immigrants comes not from latin america, but from Ireland. A melting pot isn't the ideal, anyway, because that's bland, but we shouldn't be punished for having more various Europeans coming over.

I also think tolerance and education go hand-in-hand. Rate the education system in America, and the New England states are always top 10, with MA scoring so far ahead of the rest of the country, it's ridiculous. Even if there are some old people who are less tolerant, kestrafinn, I think it's still the most institutionally tolerant commonwealth around.

They also killed all the natives or drove them out in order to preserve thier pastieness.

Here's why.

Iowa is number 12, and yes, although Anita Bryant got a pie in the face here in Des Moines, Iowa is far from tolerant.

Last year, Iowa WRECKED the state Judicial system by misuse of the retention vote of supreme court justices in order to punish them for voting in favor of legalizing gay marriage.

I'm so mad at Iowa, I could just spit. *&^holes.

A high ranking does not mean the state is totally tolerant, it means it is more tolerant than the states ranked below and less tolerant than states listed above.

You are complaining about 12th ranked Iowa kicking out the judges, bit 6th ranked California passed prop 8. Relatively speaking, those two things are not all that dissimilar. So, when ranking California relative to Iowa, those factors are nearly equal.

Wisconsin is awesome. Even the more conservative people living there are pretty live-and-let-live types. I wish I could move back.

I look at the politics in Wisconsin-- and I would be comfortable voting for Republicans. THAT says a lot.

You would have to say very specifically that you are a refugee from Mormon-dominated areas of the country, and are not a Mormon. Out-of-control Jacks are not welcome-- there is a bad enough problem with alcohol/drugs as it is. Particularly in areas close to the tribes.

I think some of it has to do with the Strangites and Black River lumber company.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2011 12:10PM by me.

New Mexico is incredibly conservative and religious...I'm suprised Colorado was listed as less tolerant (even with the Springs.)

Co has more people living in it than NM therefore it has more people to hate eachother. I was not surprised though most of the religious people I know here in NM are liberal catholics and Santa Fe is a very diverse and accepting city, thats why they call it "the city different".

I'm not so sure about how conservative you could call NM either. We are more of a mixed bag that leans liberal on some issues, conservative on a few and libertarian on others. We have 0nly 1 out of our five federal reps has an R after thier name and the state house and senate is and has been a majority democrat for a long time. As far as govs and presidents go we tend to swing back and forth from R to D.

But then a bill against same sex marriage just passed out of the house here:

http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/article_e7b69db0-24d0-11e0-acc3-001cc4c002e0.html

So it is, unfortunately, a rather accurate protrayal.

I also need to point out that the bills sponser, Rep. Owen Petersen, R-Mountain View, is about as tbm a tbm can get.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/2011 03:39PM by Richard the Bad.