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April 23, 2007
Sunday Survey: Bias on bias crimes?
Posted by: Chris
Some surprising results from last week's Sunday Survey, on the nature of sexuality among (not necessarily between!) the genders. The poll was based on the latest report on controversial sex researcher J. Michael Bailey of Northwestern University, who argues that men are generally straight or gay and women are mostly bisexual.
Visitors to this blog disagree with Bailey about both genders. Given the option of saying that each gender was "generally either straight or gay," "along a spectrum from hetero to bi to gay," or "mostly bisexual," a near majority of you selected the second, along a spectrum option, for both genders: 49% thought so of men; 47.1% thought so of women.
Bailey's view came in second for both genders: 37.3% thought men were either straight or gay, while 39.2% of you thought women were mostly bisexual. Trailing far behind were the beliefs that men are mostly bisexual (13.7%) and women are either straight or gay (3.9%).
I say the results are "surprising" because they run counter to my own experience; so apparently I need to get out more…
This week's survey is on hate crimes. I'll be posting later today on the subject, since it's the piece of gay rights legislation most likely to be enacted by Congress this year, having been reintroduced last week as the Matthew Shepard Act. Hate crime laws are controversial among conservatives and libertarians, including gay conservatives and libertarians, because they make bias, or thoughts, into a crime.
Some say that impinges on free speech, others say free exercise of religion. Still others argue, as the Human Rights Campaign's Joe Solmonese wrote in this week's Washington Blade, that "the hate crimes bill sends a strong message that society does not tolerate hate violence against our community."
What do you think? Vote in the Vizu Poll to the right, and as usual voting will not open annoying pop-ups or navigate you away from the blog.
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Silas on Apr 24, 2007 6:57:26 AM:
The poll answers could be worded better. I had a difficult time understanding what option 2 meant.
Yes, there are hate crimes where the only motivation is hate. There are some that believe all crimes are based on hate. No, not all crimes are based on hate. Bank robbers; do they rob a bank because they hate the bank? No, they want money and if someone gets in the way they might act violently. They didn't do it out of hate but out of greed or desperation.
I don't give a f*ck about religion. It's fiction anyway. Secondly, chosen belief should not come before people. The people that want their chosen beliefs to come before gay people view us as second class citizens if that. You have to realize that. They can do whatever they want but when it comes to gay people they have to have control of what we do.
Yes, on hate crime laws no matter what.