Posted on 05/21/2015 8:07:15 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
“We’re not a smart people,” says Ace, pointing to a similar but now outdated 2012 survey from Gallup.
The actual number of gays is around four percent, as best anyone can tell. What’s your guesstimate, America?
Fifty-three percent think gays compose at least 20 percent of the population. Huh. I don’t know what’s odder, the fact that this number has grown as the public’s paid more attention to gays over the past 13 years or the fact that guesstimates were already wildly inflated in 2002, before gay marriage had picked up national momentum. Logically, you would think the estimates would have been sharply lower as you go further back in time, when more gays were in the closet. Or, alternatively, you could argue that the estimates should be sharply lower now, as better information about gays has become more widely available. Instead ignorance abides — although maybe the source of the ignorance has changed. Maybe it used to be that people overestimated how many gays there were precisely because they didn’t know much about them and thought “20 percent” seemed like a reasonble-ish number, small enough to comport with gays’ status as a minority but large enough to comport with their visibility in celebrity culture. Now, Americans may have heard here and there that the actual number of gays is under five percent but they’re having trouble processing that figure because gays and gay-rights issues seem to be everywhere in media and on the news. Increased visibility may be overwhelming better information, ironically “confirming” the earlier 20-25 percent guesstimate.
There are demographic differences in the estimates too, of course:
You can see better access to information at work there in how postgrads are closer to the mark than high-school grads. On the other hand, it’s young adults who’ve grown up with plenty of access to information about gays online and on TV and they’re the most wildly wrong of any age group. Women have roughly the same access as men do and yet their guesstimate is nearly 10 points worse than men’s is. I think Ace’s theory about that is right on: It’s not so much access to statistical information that matters as personal exposure to gays. Women and young adults are almost certainly more likely to have openly gay friends than men and older people are; the more you’re surrounded by people who are gay, the more likely you are, it seems, to think gays are more prevalent in the population than they actually are. There’s a partisan difference too along those lines although it’s not as dramatic as you might think, with Democrats guesstimating that 25 percent of the public is gay and Republicans guessing 19 percent. If the basic theory here is true, that personal exposure produces higher estimates even as accurate information about gays becomes more widely available, then the numbers should actually keep increasing as gays feel more comfortable coming out to their friends. By 2030, maybe two-thirds of the public will guess that America is at least 20 percent gay.
And don’t forget, it’s in the interest of gay-rights activists to promote (or at least not contradict) the assumption that gays are more numerous than they are. That’s counterintuitive in the sense that constitutional protections for gays depend in part on their supposed status as a small, powerless, politically vulnerable group; the larger and more powerful they seem, the less they need the courts looking out for them. In reality, though, it may be that one reason support for gay marriage has spread as quickly as it has is that Americans are under the mistaken impression that it affects many more people than it actually does. The bigger the gay population seems, the less gay marriage seems like an otherwise ignorable boutique issue.
Here’s Ted Cruz deftly handling a snotty reporter who wanted to talk to him about some gay issues but most definitely not others.
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Wow...I have always understoood that people can be fairly ignorant outside of their field of knowledge...
You would think life’s experience will tell people homosexually is far lower than 20 % of the population...
The left has done well....pushing this abomination ....
I wonder what the results would be if they survey people on the percentage of women who have had an abortion ?
My bet it would trend lower than this survey....
The actual number is 2 percent, but only if one figures in the self-described heterosexuals who bang little kids of the same gender.
Suuuuure.
I call “BS”
Given the sheer rate of token gay characters on shows and other media, it looks like they are five to ten times more than the 1-2% they are in real life. By design.
It is easier to demand extra privileges when you look like a large minority.
That’s because behavior is separate from the attraction. Even if the attraction was born, it doesn’t mean the behavior is good or right.
I know hundreds of people, some better than others obviously, but I only know of 1 gay male and 1 professed lesbian... although the lesbian got knocked up by a random dude, so I don't think she's doing it right.
The gay male... well, there's no doubt on that one.
The point is that TV distorts real life.
Of that 2% of people who claim to be gay, we need to factor in those young people who have declared themselves gay because of brainwashing propaganda. Many young people now thing being gay is hip and trendy.
“Jamming” by the left.
Shove homos this and homos that into every part of life, media and conversation.
I even had a libinlaw try to do it during dinner.
Complete non-sequitur - “and 10% of the population is homosexual”.
Almost everyone at the table looked like - “whuuut?”
And I turned to her and said
“yeah, you must have read about that jamming technique in one of your liberal news sources, right? Which one was it? You’re going to have to get better at it though - that was REALLY an awkward jam.”
I agree, that is why I take the figures of less than 2%.
Obviously, if one includes bisexuals of either gender as "gay", the number is significantly larger than if you only include "pure" male homosexuals and "pure" lesbians.
One thing the media never mentions is that contrary to propaganda, "pure" lesbianism among women is several times rarer than "pure" male homosexuality, perhaps by as much as a factor of TEN. So if you're asking about percentage of "gays" and you include women in the number, you are really clouding the issue because the vast difference between the genders.
Of course, there are other important differences between male and female "pure" homosexuals. Male homosexuals have much more health problems than their female counterparts, primarily because of sexually transmitted diseases. Also, "pure" male homosexuals do not commonly have the deep-seated hatred for the opposite sex that "pure" lesbians do.
The two genders differ greately, both quantitatively and qualitatively in terms of homosexual behavior, a basic fact which is almost never mentioned in leftist media articles when the subject is of homosexuality is brought up - and it is raised ad nauseum in today's media culture.
And never, ever, diseased.............
At least 20% of Americans are gay, as estimated by … more than half of Americans
ya gotta love the scientific method used to arrive at this staggering percentage.
I’d like to estimate that far more than half of those polled really dont know squat.
I’ll call my estimate... settled science...for good measure
OMG! 20% of my family are homos as well as the guys I play senior softball with............WTH????????
Most institutions now, academia, journalism, politics, media, entertainment etc are now (seemingly) at least 50% gay. Why wouldn’t folks think it’s at least 20%? Get told something is purple long and often enough, you believe it’s purple
Ever notice that only gay men get aids?
As for pure, etc., Andrew Dice Clay said it best. “There’s no such thing as bi-sexual. You either s..k d..ks, or you don’t.” It cost him his career.
And TV shows.
Those the Academic/Media complex consider "enlightened," are actually at war with reality.
The "in your face" flaunting of asexual behavior has certainly multiplied the public's perception of the problem, to be sure. But that war with reality attitude, is responsible for most of our problems, not just those that relate to functional sexuality.
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