{"id":5694,"date":"2004-01-22T15:40:21","date_gmt":"2004-01-22T22:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2004\/01\/22\/poll-cuts.html"},"modified":"2014-11-05T15:24:13","modified_gmt":"2014-11-05T22:24:13","slug":"poll_cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/01\/22\/poll_cuts.html","title":{"rendered":"Poll cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Quel surprise<\/i>. The web poll by the American Family Association<\/a> on the nassty nasstiness of gay marriage <\/a> will not get presented to Congress after all<\/a>, as originally promised.<\/p>\n

Seems it turns out that the poll didn’t show that the vast majority of red-blooded Americans disapproved of gay marriage, but just the opposite.<\/p>\n

But the AFA never counted on the power of the Internet. And once the URL to the poll escaped its intended audience, everything went haywire. As of Jan. 19, 60 percent of respondents — more than 508,000 voters — said, “I favor legalization of homosexual marriage.” With an additional 7.89 percent — or 66,732 voters — replying, “I favor a ‘civil union’ with the full benefits of marriage except for the name,” the AFA’s chosen position, “I oppose legalization of homosexual marriage and ‘civil unions,'” was being defeated by a 2-1 ratio.<\/p>\n

Of course, a web poll is inherently meaningless, since it only reflects the opinions of those who (a) find it, and (b) feel like filling it out. That doesn’t stop folks from posting them up there, since it lets them wave around convincing-sounding percentages that, 99.99% of the time, support exactly the position that they want supported.<\/p>\n

After all, you put a web poll up on the page of a conservative religious organization, you figure the folks who see it and take it will be conservative and religious, and probably in agreement with your position on the matter (since otherwise, why would they be at your web site?).<\/p>\n

That falls apart, though, when the word gets out and people decide to skew the data some other way. As apparently happened here.<\/p>\n

It’s all, of course, a big conspiracy by the nassssty gay activists and their nasssty God-hating liberal Commie-symp atheistic allies.<\/p>\n

“We’re very concerned that the traditional state of marriage is under threat in our country by homosexual activists,” said AFA representative Buddy Smith. “It just so happens that homosexual activist groups around the country got a hold of the poll — it was forwarded to them — and they decided to have a little fun, and turn their organizations around the country (onto) the poll to try to cause it to represent something other than what we wanted it to. And so far, they succeeded with that.”<\/p>\n

You have to give them credit. They’re honest enough to admit that they had in mind what they wanted <\/i>the poll to “represent” when they gave it to Congres.<\/p>\n

Now, Smith says, his organization has had to abandon its goal of taking the poll to Capitol Hill. “We made the decision early on not to do that,” Smith admitted, “because of how, as I say, the homosexual activists around the country have done their number on it.<\/p>\n

As opposed to the anti<\/i>-homosexual activists they’d expected to do a number on it.<\/p>\n

Feh. And, heh.<\/p>\n

(via DGDD<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Quel surprise. The web poll by the American Family Association on the nassty nasstiness of gay marriage will not get presented to Congress after all, as originally promised. Seems it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[25,718],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gay-stuff","category-marriage-equality"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4851,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/12\/18\/skewed.html","url_meta":{"origin":5694,"position":0},"title":"Skewed","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 18-Dec-03 7:20am","format":false,"excerpt":"The American Family Association, a conservative (to charitably understate the matter) \"traditional family values\" group, is conducting a poll on gay marriage. Internet polls are wildly unreliable, given their self-selecting...","rel":"","context":"In "LGBTQ &c"","block_context":{"text":"LGBTQ &c","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gay-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5444,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/03\/10\/a_good_harvest.html","url_meta":{"origin":5694,"position":1},"title":"A good harvest","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 10-Mar-04 10:56am","format":false,"excerpt":"You would think the American Family Association would learn after their abortive (so to speak) gay marriage poll that (a) online polls are worthless, regardless of whether (b) people set...","rel":"","context":"In "Marriage Equality"","block_context":{"text":"Marriage Equality","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/marriage-equality"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31138,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/11\/05\/likely-voters-in-colorado-back-legal-recognition-for-gay-couples.html","url_meta":{"origin":5694,"position":2},"title":"Likely voters\u00a0in Colorado back legal recognition for gay couples","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 5-Nov-12 12:23pm","format":false,"excerpt":"That's kind of nice to hear. \u00a0Interestingly, more of that number favor marriage over civil unions.Of course, back in 2006, we managed to pass a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. \u00a0So it will be something of a fight to change things around again. And, of course, polls are one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9880,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/16\/the_shift_in_gay_marriage.html","url_meta":{"origin":5694,"position":3},"title":"The shift in gay marriage bans","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 16-Oct-06 10:38am","format":false,"excerpt":"In 2004, thirteen states passed constitutional amendments declaring marriage as being one-man+one-woman. Still more similar bans are on the ballot this year (in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota,...","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2006"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2006","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2006"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25756,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/26\/thus-the-gops-systematic-efforts-to-disenfranchise-college-students.html","url_meta":{"origin":5694,"position":4},"title":"Thus the GOP's systematic efforts to disenfranchise college students","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 26-Jan-12 2:06pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It's a very positive trend, if you ask me, and a continued sign of the demographic countdown against those opposing equal rights for gays in our society (et al.). #ddtb Embedded Link UCLA National Poll: 7 Out Of 10 College Freshmen Support Gay Marriage A new poll finds that 71.3%\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27049,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/12\/ah-dixie-youre-so-zany-in-a-horrifying-way.html","url_meta":{"origin":5694,"position":5},"title":"Ah, Dixie, you're so zany. In a horrifying way","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 12-Mar-12 9:00am","format":false,"excerpt":"Or, as Roger Ailes, President of Fox News put it: \"The 'truth' is whatever people will believe.\" #ddtbReshared post from +Talking Points MemoPoll finds 52% of Mississippi GOP thinks Obama is a Muslim, 45% of Alabama GOPers agree: Embedded Link Poll: GOP Voters In Deep South Think Obama Is Muslim,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46747,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5694\/revisions\/46747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}