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Only one in 100 Britons is gay despite long-held myth

This article is being posted in The Sun and the Daily Mail. It's also being touted all over websites like Evangelical Online and Virtue Online, so I:

1] I doubt the veracity of it's claims.
2] Haven't seen any particular methodology aside from a poorly executed phone poll.
3] Wonder why this article is supposed to matter.
 
Sam_I_Am said:
An article on the same subject from The Guardian.

I tend to side with The Guardian's take on this.
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That makes sense. If someone came to my door asking about my sexuality, I'd raise an eyebrow and politely refuse. It's all in the methodology, and this one is poorly executed.
 
I didn't know how the survey was conducted but if it is true that people were phoned or came to their doorstep to ask their sexuality is wrong way. I would agree taking this survey with a grain of salt. I would preferered sending the surrvay in the post or emails and let people fill them out in their privacy.
 
^ Agreed. When dealing with taboo social issues, you must be discrete and follow a very specific set of parameters so as not to received skewed data. None of those guidelines were followed here.

But I am sure anyone needing fuel for their political fire will use this information without hesitation. Why give honest accurate information if it doesn't support your claims. Someone has to allow the myths disguised as facts tradition to continue or everyone's right to blind ignorance would die a quick death. *sigh* What did the man say to Maulder? "Trust no one." Sad as it may seem, in today's "garbage in, garbage out" society those are wise words for the masses. When did we stop questioning things and start accepting anything thrown at us (including opinions) as fact?
 
That does sound like a poor methodology.

10 per cent is almost certainly too high: if I recall correctly, that figure too was arrived at using a fairly suspect methodology. But 1 per cent is almost certainly too low.

Just intuitively, I would be more inclined to trust the earlier surveys mentioned in the Guardian, which arrived at a figure of 6-7 per cent.
 
^ Coming up with a flat percentage would be next to impossible. Sexuality tends to very fluid so any number based on a yes or no question would not be accurate. A graded scale, similar to what Kinsey did, would be more true to the population.

But since we don't have that available, I think the 6% to 7% is about as accurate as we can get with this method.
 
AstroSmurf said:
^ Coming up with a flat percentage would be next to impossible. Sexuality tends to very fluid so any number based on a yes or no question would not be accurate. A graded scale, similar to what Kinsey did, would be more true to the population..
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Yeah, and there's always that issue of differentiating between homosexuals and bisexuals (and heterosexuals and bisexuals)...not to mention transgender people, asexuals... It's very annoying and baffling that the "either you're gay or straight" attitude is so often found in the public and the media, you'd think people would know better by this point.
 
DevilEyes said:
AstroSmurf said:
^ Coming up with a flat percentage would be next to impossible. Sexuality tends to very fluid so any number based on a yes or no question would not be accurate. A graded scale, similar to what Kinsey did, would be more true to the population..
Click to expand...
Yeah, and there's always that issue of differentiating between homosexuals and bisexuals (and heterosexuals and bisexuals)... It's very annoying and baffling that the "either you're gay or straight" attitude is so often found in the public and the media, you'd think people would know better by this point.
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Binary options are easier to manipulate.
 
The stats are bogus, for every reason already stated, but :lol: at the Sun's accompanying illustration.
 
This is a question that does need to be answered. In the US I'd like to see a separate form included with the census. Put down your orientation, age, gender, state and perhaps fill in blank for "other" and nothing else. It's mailed in separately so there's no way to trace it back to an individual.
 
Suppose it is true, hypothetically, so what? What conclusion should we take from that? I guess it's an interesting question, but I fail to see how it's relevant to the public debate in any meaningful way.
 
It's no one's business what sexual orientation someone is but it's everyone's business to put an end to that discrimination. Polls like this are about as accurate as someone asking you how much money do you have in your wallet whilst you're on the street. Not going to get many accurate results.
 
cultcross said:
UssGlenn said:
This is a question that does need to be answered.
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Why?
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Why do people climb mountains? Because it's there.
But seriously, given all the politics involved with the issue, it's nice to have some hard facts about the proportion of the population you're dealing with. Nobody thinks it's strange that we know the numbers of racial groups. The only reason not to answer it it is if you think the number is so small that knowing it would hurt the groups political clout.
 
It might be interesting academically, but why does it matter politically? Is a group that is 1% of the general population less deserving of protection from unfair discrimination than a group that is 5% or 20%?
 
So in other words, if you're enough of a minority (in any way whatsoever) it's okay we discriminate against them? Politics are already so polarized this is the last thing we need. Too much Republican vs Democrat, Liberal vs Conservative, Immigrant vs Anti-immigrant. Etc. I could go on but the idea that we need to marginalize the minority groups is by itself an absurd idea as it is.
 
Roger Wilco said:
It might be interesting academically, but why does it matter politically? Is a group that is 1% of the general population less deserving of protection from unfair discrimination than a group that is 5% or 20%?
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Of course it matters politically. Whether it's right or not that it matters, is an almost entirely separate question, but there's no doubt that yes, of course it's important politically.

No point skirting around that reality in favour of doe-eyed thinking that the news won't be manipulated by both pro and anti homosexual rights groups/interests to suit their respective agenda. That's just how things work.




Anyway, leaving realpolitik aside, I was chatting with a (gay, fwiw) friend about this the other day and we took a look at the underlying stats. There's about a 3.5% don't know/won't answer, and I don't think it's unreasonable to add a majority of those to the homosexual pile, giving us a total about 4% or so. Some in the mid-single digit range seems plausible to me. 5% +/- a couple of percent either way.
 
Roger Wilco said:
It might be interesting academically, but why does it matter politically? Is a group that is 1% of the general population less deserving of protection from unfair discrimination than a group that is 5% or 20%?
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Actually, it matters very much politically--but probably not in the sense you mean.

It matters because 6 per cent of the population cast six times as many votes as just 1 per cent of the population. Their social and familial networks are also going to be that much wider.

By contrast, discrimination against very small minorities is more likely to seem 'academic' to more people, since they don't know these people, and may never have encountered these people in their lives.

It's often said that "the personal is political," but that's backwards: the political is personal. Our political views are shaped, not by abstract considerations of justice and equity, but by our personal interests, character, and circumstances. That may not be the way it should be, but that's the way it is.
 
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