The public is at odds with Karen Pence's school's policy on homosexuality

Second lady Karen Pence has taken a job as an art teacher at a Christian school in Northern Virginia that bans gay students, parents, and employees.

The policy places the school on the other side of US public opinion; recent polling on the issue suggests most people don't see the homosexuality as immoral or even as an issue of morality.

According to a Pew poll from May 2018, two-thirds of Americans said gay or lesbian relationships are morally acceptable and only 30% said they are morally wrong. This was the highest number to say gay or lesbian relationships are morally acceptable since Gallup began tracking the question in 2001.

In 2001, only 40% thought LGBT relationships were fine, but the majority flipped by 2010 and hasn't gone under half since then. In fact, gay or lesbian relationships were one of the more morally accepted practices in 2018, behind birth control (91% morally acceptable), drinking alcohol (78%), divorce (76%), sex between an unmarried man and woman (69%), and gambling (69%).

"I am excited to be back in the classroom and doing what I love to do, which is to teach art to elementary students," Pence said in a statement defending her choice.

Pew's findings that homosexuality isn't controversial are backed up by a Gallup poll from December 2017. While fewer overall said homosexuality was either morally acceptable (22%) or morally wrong (34%), that's because they offered a third option: not a moral issue. When offered the third option, 44% said that homosexual behavior wasn't a moral issue.

And most people don't want religion to dictate government policies on LGBT issues, from an AP-NORC survey in August, 2018. Almost half of all respondents said they thought religion should have no influence at all on government policies. A third said it should have a lot or some influence and 16% said it should have "not much."

In a May, 2018 Gallup poll, 67% of Americans said that marriages between same-sex couples should be recognized by the law as valid and have the same rights as other marriages.

Vice President Mike Pence took heat during the 2016 campaign because while Governor of Indiana he signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which enabled businesses to discriminate against those in the LGBT community on the basis of religion.

By Grace Sparks. The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2019 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.

The Gayly – January 17, 2019 @ 7:20 a.m. CST.