35.1 - Good News: majority of GOPpers say society should accept homosexuality

Good News: majority of GOPpers say society should accept homosexuality

Starting off with some Good News, a recent survey by the Pew Research Center included a notable result: For the first time, a majority - 54% - of Republicans and Republican leaners say homosexuality should be accepted by society.

By contrast, only 35 percent of that same group felt that way in 2007.

Democrats and Democratic leaners, not too surprisingly, were more emphatic: 83 percent said homosexuality should be accepted by society.

On a related noted, because it also comes under the heading of LGBTQ rights, Stiles Zuschlag is a 17-year-old Maine boy who had been attending Tri-City Christian Academy in Somersworth, New Hampshire.

Stiles Zuschlag

That all changed when he came out as transgender in 2015. The school knew of his gender change, but he wanted to be clear that he should be addressed as Stiles and no longer as Alija.

So he spoke to a counselor at the school in August, who gave him an ultimatum: He had to confess his sins, renounce that he was a male, stop taking testosterone treatments, and go to Christian counseling - or find a new school.

So this year he found a new school, a public one: Noble High School, in North Berwick, Maine.

When an email began circulating asking for nominees for the position of this year's homecoming king, as a joke he asked for his name to be put in. You know what's coming: Not only was he nominated, on October 6, he won.

It's a small thing, even a very small thing; nonetheless, it's another little sign of progress, of acceptance of people for who they are. And just like GOPpers gradually coming around, that is Good News.