From here:
The first ever official count of the gay population has found that only one in 100 adults is homosexual.
The figure explodes the assumption – long promoted by social experts and lobbyists – that the number is up to ten times higher than this at one in ten.
The Office for National Statistics said 1.3 per cent of men are gay and 0.6 per cent of women are lesbian.
Another 0.5 per cent consider themselves bisexual, according to the figures gathered from questions put to nearly 250,000 – the biggest survey possible outside a full national census.
This means that, in total, around 1.5 per cent of the population is either homosexual or bisexual.
There isn’t much reason to suppose that the percentages would be substantially different in North America. I strongly suspect that the percentage of homosexual Anglican priests is much higher, though.
Other than the attraction of dressing up in robes, I can’t think of any convincing reason for this: it does help to explain the obsession that the Anglican church has for what it calls “the full inclusion of gays”. It has more to do with self-interest than anything else.
Surveys of the number of gay/lesbian people (or the current debate about Cardinal Newman – “clearly gay”, an Oxford prof said on TV, Saturday) assumes the born-that-way/unchangeable/all in the genes view, which proponents of homosexual power (power is what it’s all about) smuggle into the debates as an assumption. If I’d been doing the prog on Newman, last Saturday, instead of Anne Widdecombe, I’d have said to the prof “It all depends what you mean by gay”; the prof was assuming that the born-that-way idea is unquestionably true. I reject that view, since NARTH and others have put good hard evidence (and life experience stories) proving that “being gay” is rather different, and not like being black-skinned at all. But this is non-politically determined/ideologically led science/knowledge.
Those who push an agenda will always try to protray themselves as being more than what they truly are. But to claim 10% of the general population when objective independant evidence indicates the true amount to less than 1% is extreme. But then again, the type of people in question here are by their very nature extreme.
I just hope that the Britich Office for National Statistics is prepared for the political attack it will undoubtably be subjected to.
I wonder what the origin of the oft quoted one in ten stat is – anybody know?
Kate – don’t quote me – but wasn’t it Kinsey?