July 2, 2009
The Unknown Variable in the Marriage Poll
This recent letter from Lewis Prescott, of Lincoln, reminded me that I have yet to receive a response to phone and email inquiries about the age-range breakdown behind Brown professor Marion Orr's recent poll finding support for same-sex marriage. Prescott is suspicious:
If you ever want to take a poll and have the results turn out the way you would like them to be, then have Brown University do it. It has a system of convoluted questions and acceptable answers that could tilt the leaning tower of Pisa back to its upright position.
Me, I'm ready to believe the poll's results. I'd just like to be able to look for interesting patterns across polls and find it surprising that an Ivy League academic would obscure a very relevant variable.
According to Mr Prescott,if you want the results to come out your way,have Brown University do the poll.
So if the American Family Assoc. or
the Westboro Baptist Church hired Brown
to do the poll,then the results would have been diferent?
I wonder which way SATAN would have answered those poll questions.
Posted by: Phil at July 4, 2009 7:48 AMI suppose that could go either way, Phil, given the context and the likelihood of either response to sow discord. Of course, I imagine Satan's direct line to be a difficult phone number to find, and it may be that he's rarely home to answer.
Posted by: Justin Katz at July 4, 2009 8:56 AMJustin
Good answer to my irreverent and impious question. Have a happy 4th.
Posted by: Phil at July 4, 2009 10:20 AMSatan would vote NO ON GAY RIGHTS
he is a Right-wingnut republican
The rev jerry fallwell is a house guest
This may be slighhtly off topic, but whenever the issue of "gay rights" comes up I marvel at the language. For the life of me I cannot understand the difficulty with "civil unions". Why is the word "marriage" so important? Is a "civil marriage" less than a clerical sacrament? Are we valuing form over funtion? The word "homophobic" also troubles me, it implies fear. I think that with most people "homo averse" would be more accurate. I know a number of people who would prefer not to associate with gays, but they are not "afraid" of them.
Posted by: Warrington Faust at July 5, 2009 2:00 PMNo comments to \\\"homo-averse\\\"
if Ms. Faust used the term
Christian-averse
Jewish-averse
Catholic-averse
Reagan-averse
there would be dozens of comments condeming her comments
averse=a feeling of repugnance of distaste
Posted by: Larry at July 5, 2009 8:58 PM