Posted on 07/17/2014 6:48:21 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
There is good news in Tuesdays release from the CDCs National Health Information Survey. No, its not the revelation that the gay and lesbian population may be slightly smaller 1.6 percent than many scholars have believed; population-based surveys tend to fluctuate. The results of the report make sense to me, and since others have already described them, I will refrain from repeating them at length here.
The good news is that the surveys questions were administered to over 34,000 Americans, randomly sampled, enabling scholars to get quality information about even small communities. And since the NHIS didnt broadcast its interests or commitments to its survey pool (unlike some studies), we are treated to valid data on sexuality as well as many other subjects largely devoid of a form of social-desirability bias wherein respondents awareness of their own participation in a study whose topic is dear to them affects their survey answers.
This was not always so. Survey questions about sex and sexuality have a colorful political history, especially when Uncle Sam picks up the tab. My entry into the study of human sexual behavior which turned me neither left nor secular came by way of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which was born at the University of North Carolina (where I earned my Ph.D.). Professors there had been seeking federal funding for a national study of sexual behavior during adolescence. Although the details of the saga are known to few, the gist of the circulated narrative is that the original study was canned with help from the states senior senator, Jesse Helms, who felt the American public needed protection from a government that was bold enough to snoop into its citizens bedrooms. Rather than capitulate and move on, the principal investigators did what seemed most sensible to them they added health questions to the study of sexual behavior and thus was born the well-regarded Add Health study, now on its fourth wave. The extra d in its nickname (it should be just Ad, for Adolescent) is there on purpose, a subtle jab at the system that sought to abort its birth.
I owe my career, in part, to that study, whose complexity and thoroughness taught me that high-quality survey data carefully collected is a treasure, even if the populations it illuminates couldnt care less, or actively oppose the light. Good information is just that, and scholars and citizens of all stripes value knowing the truth about Americans as it can best be discerned.
Of course, a quality sample and a good set of questions is just a start. Moving from survey construction to data collection to analysis to interpretation multiplies the opportunities for ill will and intellectual contest. Thats understandable; humans are the most challenging subjects to understand, and their behavior the most difficult to predict with accuracy. Thus surveys have limitations; theyre not poised to go deep into human motivation. But theyre good at description.
Toward that end, then, is Americas LGBT population really only 1 to 2 percent, as the new NCIS data suggest? Or is it 2 to 4 percent, as most other data sources including two large population-based surveys I conducted have asserted? Im not sure it matters a great deal. The more important point is that data collection done carefully with appropriate (random) sampling strategies generates estimates far closer to the real numbers than will sloppy surveys and dubious samples, the results from which are now erroneously embedded into the American imagination. Indeed, a recent Gallup foray into public attitudes revealed that Americans think that one in four of their fellow citizens is either gay or lesbian (to say nothing of bisexuals, etc.). Even Alfred Kinseys maligned quota sampling accompanied by opportunistic collection approach elicited only an off-base 10 percent guesstimate. But today, no more than four out of 100 Americans think that the real number which the NCIS estimates is 1.6 percent is below 5 percent. Methinks Will & Grace has done more than just prime the country for same-sex marriage.
So, yes, the government is in your bedroom, figuratively (and indirectly) speaking. But information-gathering about Americans attitudes and behaviors when obtained from their own mouths and with their consent and confidentiality is okay. From social studies like the Add Health and the NCIS we can learn, clarify, and correct. Both sides of the aisle ought to continue to support ample federal funding of general data-collection projects like these, because a citizenry that lacks good data about itself or worse, doesnt care is willingly choosing ignorance over illumination.
Mark Regnerus is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, a research associate of its Population Research Center, and a senior fellow of the Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture.
So the 95+% of straight Americans are allowing a very small minority to run our culture and morality into the sewer? Wow.
When the government asks intrusive questions, I answer only the one about male/female. I don’t answer the others, about race, orientation, etc.
For what it’s worth, Massachusetts has had homosexual marriage for ten years now.
Massachusetts was the very first state to have homosexual marriage imposed upon it.
Since homosexual marriage started there, about 4% of all marriages are homosexual marriages. While 96% are between opposite sex couples.
Just mention this as another indicator of how many people really are homosexuals.
Now we know why the LGBT crowd has been so vocal lately - survival; trying to increase their herd by getting the education system, the entertainment industry, and the MSM to tell our children it’s okay to be gay while trying to install gay scout leaders in troops so they can get some alone time with the kids in their tents far removed from home. They’re trying to convince young children that they’re gay and they’re believing it because of the culture we live in. I suspect many of those children live in one parent homes and don’t go to church.
The problem is that theirs is a culture of hedonism, disease, and death. They’ll never have appreciable numbers compared to those of us who procreate naturally/normally.
“What else can I say, everyone is gay.” - Kurt Cobain (All Apologies)
Oscar Wilde used to call it : “The Love that dare not speak its name”
Now it has become the love that won’t shut the F up.
I’ve just flown in from California, where they’ve made homosexuality legal. I thought I’d get out before they make it compulsory.
— Bob Hope after they passed of the 1975 Consenting Adult Sex Bill
So they spring this intrusive survey on your kids in middle and high school virtually demanding their participation [the opt out is in “fine print” since its just handed out with no advance notice to parents and your kids don’t know to say no first]]and then brag about the unbiased results.
The web site also discusses follow-ups and in home visits...ReallY???
Just so glad I don’t have kids in school...these people are vile. Middle schoolers should not be having sexual experiences...just asking the questions make them think they should be because “everyone else is...”
Bob was very prophetic.
Hedonism is rampant in our culture right now similar to the days of Noah.
Its probably making God wish he’d never used a rainbow to make that promise after the flood.
‘Hedonism is rampant in our culture right now similar to the days of Noah.
Its probably making God wish hed never used a rainbow to make that promise after the flood’
God promised he wouldn’t use water again to destroy the evil ones, almost everyone except for Noah and his family, but he didn’t say he wouldn’t use fire or the sword. I have been practicing my machete skills lately with the Hispanic and Muzzie invasion in mind. Also my rifle skills with the Fed takeover now in the works. I was never a Boy Scout but be prepared is my motto also.
I believe that we should start using the exact number cited in the survey and use it often, as stated in the article, many believe that about 25% are queer - 01.6% queer, is the accurate number.
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