Gay people elected Obama. How's that for a provocative lede? You doubt me? Check out these fun stats, based on exit poll data. Respondents were asked: Are you gay, lesbian or bisexual?
Yes 5%
No 95%
No surprise above in how many gay or non-gay voters were found in the electorate this week. But check out the numbers below.
Yes, Gay No, Not
Voted Obama 76% 22%
Voted Romney 49% 49%
In other words, among voters who said they weren't gay, it's a tie. Among voters who said they were, Obama overwhelmed Romney.
Oh my, if Rush Limbaugh sees this, he'll have a fit. Forget I mentioned it.
And I should point out that it's likely many of these votes were in states that were already solid Obama in the first place.
Showing posts with label gays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gays. Show all posts
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Friday, August 12, 2011
What the Elderly Know ... about Gays
In my never-ending struggle to bring you obscure and perhaps overlooked studies about what people know, I bring you this one. The lede:
Twenty-six percent, that's impressive. The point is the sample size, not the proportion of the population.
There is an important finding:
A small but groundbreaking survey of seniors and caregivers at two facilities in the East Bay has revealed mostly positive attitudes toward lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender elders.There are a few methodological issues here. The surveys are of 92 caregivers and 64 elders. That makes the margins of error at just over 9 for the larger sample and just over 11 for the smaller sample. And some folks don't get the difference between a sample and a census. Here's a line from the story:
Researchers acknowledged the survey likely doesn't reflect the full range of attitudes among staff members because it only represented 26 percent of the total 350-member workforce at the facilities who participated.
Twenty-six percent, that's impressive. The point is the sample size, not the proportion of the population.
There is an important finding:
Despite the low participation rate, responses did demonstrate that caregivers have little knowledge about how to deal with LGBT seniors or family members. Lavender Seniors will design training for administrators and front-line staff about bathing and other forms of personal assistance, as well as handling legal issues and communication with lesbian or gay partners of clients or their next of kin.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Homophobic Innumeracy
Not only does the general public do a lousy job of answering political knowledge questions, it also suffers from statistical innumeracy. In other words, we suck at estimating risk, at how much the government spends on foreign aid, and -- it seems -- how many gay people there are out there.
A new Public Opinion Quarterly study by three people (two of who I took for class as a grad student!) looks at homophobic innumeracy and finds that, indeed, the public is bad at this. Then again, the public is bad at estimating the size of other minority populations. As the authors note, people "aim high" in these estimates.
People in the certain demographic groups aim the highest, or "mis-estimate" the most: woman, less educated, blacks. Not coincidentally these folks also tend to score lowest on political knowledge tests. Interestingly, they find no real relationship between religious beliefs, even a literal interpretation of the Bible, and overestimation.
Following politics was associated with less overestimation. Or, I suppose, more accurate estimation. Unfortunately that's as close as the authors get to a media variable. I'd love to know whether exposure to the news made one more or less likely to overestimate the number of gays and lesbians in society. My guess is that media exposure would lead to greater overestimation by segments of society. Why? Because you see gays marching or protesting or dealing with some legislation on the news, you're more likely to think there are a lot of them, or at least more of them than exist in the population.
The funny part is, there are people who argue about the numbers here. It's one of those great debates, like what's the actual number of people who attend religious services. It all depends on your methodology.
A new Public Opinion Quarterly study by three people (two of who I took for class as a grad student!) looks at homophobic innumeracy and finds that, indeed, the public is bad at this. Then again, the public is bad at estimating the size of other minority populations. As the authors note, people "aim high" in these estimates.
People in the certain demographic groups aim the highest, or "mis-estimate" the most: woman, less educated, blacks. Not coincidentally these folks also tend to score lowest on political knowledge tests. Interestingly, they find no real relationship between religious beliefs, even a literal interpretation of the Bible, and overestimation.
Following politics was associated with less overestimation. Or, I suppose, more accurate estimation. Unfortunately that's as close as the authors get to a media variable. I'd love to know whether exposure to the news made one more or less likely to overestimate the number of gays and lesbians in society. My guess is that media exposure would lead to greater overestimation by segments of society. Why? Because you see gays marching or protesting or dealing with some legislation on the news, you're more likely to think there are a lot of them, or at least more of them than exist in the population.
The funny part is, there are people who argue about the numbers here. It's one of those great debates, like what's the actual number of people who attend religious services. It all depends on your methodology.
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