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Thursday, January 29, 2015

92 Percent of LGBT Americans Support Marriage Equality

This week, sensationalistic headlines around the country have been proclaiming the shocking news that there are gays who don't support marriage equality. Ho-hum. Ya know, fellas, there has never, ever been a poll taken that produced results of 100 percent for or against anything: there's always a few oppositional personalities who will take the minority view of things. Sometimes they are right, too.

 But in point of fact, here is how the Pew poll - which actually seems to be a combination of two surveys taken in 2013 and 2014 (I can't find the raw data on their site) - breaks down:

Click to enlarge.

I suppose the 7 percent of LGBT's opposed are those well-hidden "best friends" of the anti-gay crowd who love to proclaim that their gay friends don't support marriage equality.

This 2013 Pew survey of LGBT's provides more data if you're interested - though bear in mind always that these figures do not come from the mouth of God, but are subject to interpretation and variation. One little point, though, intrigues your Head Trucker: the whole transgender thing has become quite a cause celebre in the last few years, but Pew says:
Although there is limited data on the size of the transgender population, it is estimated that 0.3% of all American adults are transgender.
Which is what your Head Trucker thought: the ratio of trans people to gays is about the same as the ratio of gays to the general population (i.e., somewhere around 3 percent).

Pew also found that the division between party boys and sensible people is about what your Head Trucker thought - fifty-fifty:



And since we're talking statistics, there's another Pew report you might like to look at, with some interesting details on the changing generations in the general population:



I can't keep all these new-fangled generations straight, can you?  But here's a handy cheat sheet:



2 comments:

Muskox said...

Sorry, Russ, but your math is a bit rusty. If 0.3% 0f the population is transgendered and 3% of the population is gay, that's a trans to gay ratio of 1 to 10. If 3% of the population is gay, that's a gay to straight ratio of 1 to 33. Not even close. Of course, both are estimates and, literally, God only knows.

Russ Manley said...

Ha, well I have never claimed to be a mathematician. But regardless of how the numbers add up, I had always figured that the if the gays were about 3 out of a hundred, then the T's must be about 3 out of a thousand - so it was nice to see my theory validated by the Pew people. Of course it's all just guesswork even on their part, as you say.

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