Posted on 03/02/2013 11:43:19 AM PST by Olog-hai
Public opinion on marriage for gay and lesbian couples has shifted with almost unprecedented speed since California voters banned such unions in 2008.
That shift could influence the Supreme Court, in particular Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and possibly Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., as it decides whether to uphold Proposition 8 in coming months. …
Kennedy, along with others on the court, probably would also resist going too fast. The current justices, both liberals and conservatives, say the court of the early 1970s made a mistake by striking down all state laws on abortion and capital punishment. Both decisions appeared to trigger a backlash, and the death penalty was soon restored to law.
Better to move in line with—or just slightly ahead of—shifting opinion, they believe. …
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Notice that depending on where Gallup polled, they got fewer gays ~ that's because gays are NOT evenly distributed geographically ~ they are concentrated in cities!
That, BTW, is the only correct part of the survey!
And polling is almost always accurate and within the margin of error.
As for the poll in California, I suspect it is accurate to within 4 points.
At the very best, maybe 56% of the people in CA are supportive of gay marriage.
Of the bad options that exist, it would be better for the voters to overturn Prop 8 than for the SCOTUS.
No, the Supreme Court, and Roberts in particular, will uphold the will and vote of the people on the basis that he will not want to shield politicians and the gay community from the political consequences of the voting electorate.
Wasn’t that his rationale in the Healthcare ruling, that election results have consequences, and those consequences must be endured?
I was recalling the Gallup poll when I made my post.
You are way off. My number is closer to the actual than yours.
Shocking Gallup Poll: Average American Thinks 25 Percent of Country Is ‘Gay’
Do you really think we are having a sane societal debate on anything homosexuality-related when the typical Americans thinks that 25 percent — yes, 25 percent – of the country is “gay”?[snip]
Only 4 percent of all those surveyed in 2011 and about 8 percent of those surveyed in 2002 correctly guessed that fewer than 5 percent of Americans identify as gay or lesbian... The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, a gay and lesbian think tank, released a study in April 2011 estimating based on its research that just 1.7 percent of Americans between 18 and 44 identify as gay or lesbian, while another 1.8 percent — predominantly women — identify as bisexual... A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey of women between 22 and 44 that questioned more than 13,500 respondents between 2006 and 2008 found very similar numbers: Only 1 percent of the women identified themselves as gay, while 4 percent identified as bisexual."
-PJ
Yeah, that’s it.
The Supreme Court is supposed to ignore that silly old parchment called “The Constitution” and rule based on the chic political correctness of the day.
That’s the ticket!
They won't answer most other sex related questions either.
The pollsters almost invariably count such answers as being non-answers and they drop the respondents from the statistical base. That has the effect of doubling the homosexual answer.
The Gallup poll erred in making their practice known ~ and they got the sort of response you'd expect if a small group ALWAYS answered the phone (or did a pollster call back) and the larger group only responded at 9% of the time.
There's also a bias where wealthier Americans have more phone numbers and are more likely to be selected by a pollster ~ if a random number dialer is in use. That's the same sort of problem that had pollsters telling us Dewey had beaten Truman.
People who are issued cellphone service by their employers are also easily overrepresented in any telephone poll.
Again, pollsters substitute for these deficiencies in modern random sample polling with older methods ~ see AUGERIES ~ and simple rationalization.
I watched primary numbers. Where no one was much interested, they didn't show up to vote for the guy in the Fall either. Sure, there's not a lot of precision in that sort of analysis, but it gives you a trendline.
BTW, that’s a single poll. Gallup asked every respondent in 2012 if he or she was gay ~ they reported an aggregate response.
Yep - “public opinion” is what is killing us and a big reason why we were founded as a Representative Republic instead of a democracy - P.T. Barnum explained the rest.
-PJ
The discussion of the interplay between PEW's discovery (9% response) and Gallup' practice of the last year regarding gays can be found on a number of FR boards ~ since early last Fall.
Gallup made no adustments to account for the effect ~ just raw data ~ it must be normalized to make any sense.
There are less than 1% gay folks around ~
“gay and lesbian couples has shifted”
No it has not! When perverted homosexuals can conceive a child with their same sex partners. They may have a chance.
Phony polls and screaming lefties?
The reason for that is so that public opinion won't carry sway in ruling on Constitutional matters.
Word is that DC is awash with homosexuals, anyway, so the normally skewed MSM viewpoint will be even more so in that venue.
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