Wow, 36%. That's a big number. There are 6,497,967 people in Massachusetts. That's 2,339,268 people (give or take) that feel they need to "watch their backs."
What have we done, gays? We're terrorizing... our enemies... merely... for... thinking...
Wait just a second. 36% of voters who oppose gay marriage? 64% of the state is registered to vote and according to the study I found, support amongst the state's citizenry for genuine gay marriage* is 56%. So if 36% of 44% of 64% fear for their backs...
...that's about 10% 650,000 people!
So, to the 10% or so Massachusett-ites who fear for your spines, we're sorry for the vague threats we've been issuing. But we didn't bring the Neolithic attitude toward the gay minority to the party so grow up. Try worrying about the planet or the economy or something else you may be able to influence in some way.
And to the well-read scholar who wrote the even-handed analysis the original quote came from I say this:
- First, thank you for participating in this debate in a cool, controlled manner.
- Second, you claim individualism and communism are bad without establishing a reasonable middle-place. I think you need to elaborate on that.
- Finally, pick a better statistic then "36 percent of 44 percent of 64 percent."
*References: here, here, here, here, here, and here.
+++
For the Love of Pete, if anyone spots me making a math error in here please, please let me know.
good video
3 comments:
pick a better statistic then "36 percent of 44 percent.
It's like they say, there are three types of lies
1) white lies
2) damn lies
&
3) statistics
For the Love of Pete, if anyone spots me making a math error in here please, please let me know....
Actually, 36 percent of 44 percent isn't 1/1584, it's 1584/10,000, or 15.84%.
If we were talking about 15.84% of the population, that would be over a million people.
But it does say "36% of voters who oppose gay marriage". The best info I could find (without looking too hard) says that about 64% of the population of MA is registered to vote (or at least that was the number as of 2004) (1, 2).
So we're looking at 36% of 44% of 64% of the population (assuming we're talking about registered voters--not just people who actually vote), or around 10% of the total, or about 650,000 people.
Of course, the NOM/MFI survey (from which the original quote at the beginning of the post comes) only included 306 people, and cites a margin of error of +/- 5.7 percent (which is rather large). So we're actually talking about somewhere between 31.3% and 41.7% of voters (i.e. of 44% of 64%), or between 8.8% and 11.7% of the total population, or between 570,000 and 760,000 people. Who are afraid that someone may try to hurt them if they speak out against marriage.
That's still a lot of people, I guess. But we're still assuming:
(1) That the sample of 306 people questioned in the poll was sufficiently random
(2) That the question was sufficiently "neutral"--that is, that it was not worded so as to elicit a particular response.
I wonder what percentage of respondents would have agreed with the statement: "If you speak out in favor of gay marriage in Massachusetts you really have to watch your back because some people may try to hurt you."
... I wonder what the response to that question would be in Utah?
Thanks Scott! I updated the post.
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