A more tolerant Britain

Encouraging news from British Social Attitudes survey (reported in the Guardian and the Telegraph with rather different emphasis) that public perception of gay people's relationships has changed dramatically in the last two decades. Fools quote unqualified statistics, but apparently:

• 1/3 (or 1/5 – the Guardian article is a bit inconsistent on this) of people view homosexuality as being morally wrong (compared with 3/4 in 1987).
  
• roughly 1/3 of people believe that LGBT couples make suitable parents.

This is emphatically good progress, but the latter statistic is quite disappointing. One of the wonderful things about the sexual and gender-conforming liberation enjoyed by the LGBT community is of course the lack of a requirement to conform to the quite restrictive model of relationship that is imposed by heterosexual society. Notwithstanding that, the lack of belief that LGBT couples make suitable parents seems to suggest that old stereotypes of LGBT relationships, such as that they are somehow less secure or nurturing are still in place. Not all LGBT people want children, but those that do are usually well able to raise them in a loving environment.