Opinion:     “It would make sense if, and only if, homosexuals believed in saving sex for marriage and limiting sex to marriage, which is simply not the case. Monogamy among heterosexuals is 83 percent but less than 2 percent for homosexuals. (6)

Fact:  The statistics here on monogamy are noted as coming from a book by “gay-conversion” enthusiast Jeffrey Satinover titled, ironically, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth. Satinover, known for presenting unsupported data, has, among other efforts, mounted targeted campaigns against the American Psychological Association’s science-based reclassification of homosexuality as not caused by, or causing, a disorder. In other words, Satinover has indicated, clearly, that he does not value science.

Satinover claimed his numbers came from a large study published in 1994 as The Social Organization of Sexuality, which is still thought of as the most accurate report on America’s sexual practices. Unfortunately for rationalists looking for reliable data, Satinover’s numbers cannot be drawn from that study, and his “data” on monogamy are mixed references to unrelated survey results. For example, Satinover cites the 83% fidelity figure for “heterosexuals”. No such data were compiled in that study, and figures about monogamy included data from the general population, not just people identifying as heterosexuals. When looking at a subset only including “married men”, the data show that 25% admit to having sex outside their current marriage. The fact that these unscientific numbers show up in documents from every major group opposing same-sex marriage is significant, and troubling.

Anthropologist George Murdock, in his groundbreaking Atlas of World Cultures, found that of the 563 distinguishable societies worldwide, only 18 percent considered monogamy important at all. This doesn’t mean we should necessarily use that data in deciding on same-sex unions, but if we quote statistics on ‘traditional marriage worldwide’, we should look at the best data we have.

Other “statistics” in Satinover’s book, promoted aggressively by those opposed to gay rights of any kind, come from Paul Cameron, head of the aggressively anti-homosexuality Family Research Institute. Cameron’s famous “data” on the life expectancy of homosexuals is a virtual textbook example of how not to do research. In short: Cameron counted some death news articles in urban gay papers, averaged the ages of the deceased, and came up with 43 years. I am confident my 7-year-old nephew could find the errors in this methodology. William Bennett, President Clinton’s Education Secretary, was blind to those flaws, however, and went around the country promoting the idea that gay people live a dismal 43 years. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistician John Karon later helpfully pointed out for Bennett and others that, among other obvious problems, this “survey” ignores the ages of those who are quite alive.

Statistics are sometimes useful, and when they are, they must be reliable.

However unsupported and unclear this entire argument is, the overall premise is clearly false: homosexuals don't 'believe' anything, as a group, and therefore it’s not valid to generalize this 'belief'. It’s also not logical, for various reasons, to factor in any data here on “homosexual” sex as relates to marriage: A) there is no premarital-sex data coming only from a cohort of gay people living their entire sexual lives in places where same-sex marriage is legal, B) it not logical to count extra-marital sex as a negative in places where the group in question can’t legally marry; C) even in places where same-sex marriage is legal, many decide against it because of lasting societal and familial proscriptions against it; D) the data would have to include all gay people married to opposite-sex partners within the numbers for homosexuals, not heterosexuals - this includes at least 1 million men who self-identify as gay despite being married to women; E) civil rights are not decided, by rational societies, based on any perceived behaviors of the group in question; F) it’s not logical to argue that marriage promotes ‘healthy, stable relationships’ and simultaneously that same-sex marriage should be banned because gay people don’t engage in those same healthy, stable relationships.

Even if the data on monogamy were valid, statistics are never to be considered in questions of civil rights. The above argument suggests that 17 percent of heterosexuals are adulterous, and many of those people would probably agree that the civil rights of human beings are established at birth, independent of any later behavior.

--

Gary J. Gates, a demographer at the Williams Institute, a research group that studies gay issues at U.C.L.A]

http://www.slate.com/id/2098/

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,139848,00.html#ixzz1lC29kRMb

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/fashion/03marriage_bg.html?pagewanted=2-----

Murdock GP (1981) Atlas of world cultures. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh.

(*) These are the misleading sources linked from the NC Values Coalition web page ‘opinions’ above:

(6) Jeffrey Satinover, M.C., "Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth" (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1996), 54.  The data from which Dr. Satinover draws these figures is the Sex in America survey published by researchers from the University of Chicago in 1994.









http://sites.google.com/site/hemlockbluffcloggers/