Do conservative groups often lie about the population statistics of g*y people?

Question

Do conservative groups often lie about the population statistics of g*y people?

Answer 1

I would suppose so, (they don't really like us).

Answer 2

Lie is an interesting word.  Conservative groups often misrepresent population statistics of g*y people -- but they do it via a mechanism that argues it isn't truly a lie.  

There are two ways you can count g**s.  One is to look at what people do.  Is X person having s*x and a relationship with another member of the same gender, or is X having s*x and a relationship with a member of the other gender?  The other is to walk up to people on the street corner and ask "are you g*y or straight" -- and only count those that say "Oh, I'm g*y" as being g*y.

The Right favors using that second method.  So, how many people SELF-IDENTIFY as g*y?  It's generally about 3 to 4%.  If you pick the areas you ask and the ways you ask you may even be able to get it lower.  

Does anyone really think however that only what someone says they are is relevant?  If a man climbs up the Empire State Building, and you ask if he is acrobatic and he says "no" -- well -- is he telling the truth or is he acrobatic?  If a man sleeps exclusively with other men, and you ask him if he is g*y or straight and he says "straight -- is he telling the truth or is he g*y?

So, some studies only look at behavior -- they ignore self-identification entirely -- they have tended to find much higher levels of homosexuality than studies that only look at self-identification.

Just recently a study (Discordance between Sexual Behavior and Self-Reported Sexual Identity; "Annals of Internal Medicine"; September 2006) looked at a very large sample in both ways.  That study found that about 4% of men said they were homosexual, but 12.7% of men engaged exclusively in sexual contact with other men.  8.7% (roughly) of all men in the study (almost 6,000 -- a HUGE sample by scientific standards) said that they were heterosexual when asked, but strongly preferred other males for sexual partners.

Do those on the Right who quote the figures of Campbell and others know this?  ... The leaders almost certainly do -- the rank and file -- maybe some of them, but most of them don't read anything that hasn't been vetted -- and the leaders don't care -- this is about politics and power and rationality has nothing to do with it.

So in FACT, those on the Right lie blatantly about how many g**s and lesbians there are, but I do not believe most of them know it -- and those that do are, I believe, too blinded by determination to harm us, to really care whether its factual or not, as long as it does the job they want.

Kindest thoughts,

Hermes