Ebbie, regarding the 99%...perhaps what you are objecting to in my figure is that many children have grown up in single parent families where the father was not present. That's true. But there was a heterosexual father involved at some point, because that's how their mother got pregnant! There wasn't a gay father raising most of those children I speak of in the vast majority of North American families, and when they think of a father figure, a gay man is not what comes to their minds, a heterosexual man is what comes to their minds.

And that was what I was referring to. Most people grow up with a set of heterosexual assumptions in their mind about their future role in life, and that's why having a gay man as president would strike them as very unusual. And if they think it's unusual, then it will make them feel uncomfortable, in most cases, and that's why the odds are stacked against the public voting for a gay president, if offered the choice. Not because of some kind of universal hatred of gays...because it would be very unusual, that's all!

I don't dream that either the Republicans or the Democrats ever WILL openly offer them that choice to the public...so I doubt that we'll see my theory get put to the test. ;-)

Those 2 parties are in the business of selling a product...the candidate they choose to put in front of the people. They will back the candidate they think will get the most support from the most people. He (or she) is the one who'll get the most campaign funding, and it's campaign funding which wins an election.

Obama got by far the most campaign funding in 2008, and he naturally won the election. It was the right moment to offer a seemingly radical "change", so they switched in midstream from the predictable (Hillary) to the seemingly more radical (Obama).

You will not see them give that kind of campaign funding to an openly gay candidate, because he or she would be a tremendously hard sell to main street America. They (the Democratic and Republican parties) aren't completely stupid, after all. They always pick someone from their ranks who they think can win. That isn't an openly gay person in the USA, and so far it hasn't been in any other modern nation either. Not once. Not anywhere. That isn't because everyone everywhere hates gays. It's because people are accustomed to having heterosexual leaders at the head of their various nations. Period. And they are mostly accustomed to having men as their national leaders. That's why we've seen only a few women become national leaders in the last hundred years, among a great many men. It's simply cultural conditioning, because women are just as good at leading a country as men are...given the chance.