Why Focus On LGBT Issues When That Affects Less Than 3 Percent Of Americans?

by Sam Rolley 
The Barack Obama Administration has gone out of its way to express support for Americans who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual. But according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Administration’s focus on all things LGBT may be overblown, considering that Americans identifying as such make up less than 3 percent of the population.
According to the CDC’s annual National Health Interview Survey, only 1.6 percent of American adults self-identify as gay or lesbian and just 0.7 percent consider themselves bisexual. Just more than1 percent declined to answer, answered “I don’t know the answer” or claimed to be “something else.”
Meanwhile, 96.6 percent of American adults said they are straight.

The CDC survey offers the first large-scale measure of American sexual orientation and will serve as a way to determine where government funding should be allocated in examining LGBT issues.
NHIS includes a wide range of survey questions on health, the addition of questions on sexual orientation will facilitate many opportunities for future researchers to examine health among sexual minority populations using a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults,” the report said.
The LGBT data was included in the CDC survey as the result of a promise made by Obama Administration Secretary of Health & Human Services Kathleen Sebelius in 2011.
The Administration has heavily focused on LGBT issues, most notably with the Obama’s February 2011 order that the Department of Justice no longer defend Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) against equal protection constitutional challenges brought by same-sex couples and his repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.