3.2% of Americans Identify as LGBT, According to New Gallup Poll

According to a recent Gallup poll, 3.2% of American adults self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.

In the poll, released Thursday, the percentage was determined from a series of 121,290 interviews between June 1 and September 30. Gallup claims it is the largest survey of its kind to date.

The survey also found that nonwhite individuals are more likely to identify as LGBT. African-Americans (4.6%), Asian-Americans (4.3%), and Hispanics (4.0%), all exceeded the non-Hispanic white percentage of 3.2% LGBT.

The question read, "Do you, personally, identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender?"

Lauren S. Kannry, director of public relations for Gallup, called it a "landmark" study, which also identified 44% of this LGBT population as Democratic, 43% as independent, and 13% as Republican.

The Family Research Council was quick to interpret the Gallup findings as an example of the "major disconnect" between LGBT representation on television and in daily life. In a recent report, the certified antigay hate group stated:

"For years, these 3.4% have seemed to enjoy 100% accommodation. As a community, they've gone out of their way to demand special treatment -- even trampling the freedom and values of the other 97% to secure it. This may be a tiny fraction of the population, but they are quite literally rewriting history."

But the author of the Gallup report, Gary Gates, determined that the findings should cut against sterotypes associated with LGBT people.

"Contemporary media often think of LGBT people as disproportionately white, male, urban, and pretty wealthy," he said. "But this data reveal that relative to the general population, the LGBT population has a larger proportion of nonwhite people and clearly is not overly wealthy."

For the full report, visit www.gallup.com.