the New Gay Economy

[Jim Westrich]

I agree very much with the points made by Michael and Nathan.  I may look 
at the original article to see how much is made of the correlation but the 
summary made it seem to be pretty meaningless work due to all the 
confounding factors.

I just wanted to add that gay couples can identify themselves if they 
choose to for the Census (at least in the written long form).  There is the 
option of choosing unmarried partner as relation between householder and 
household member.  I have used Massachusetts Census data and not many 
people use this option (there is no explicit instructions to do so and many 
choose "roommate" because it may connote just as well as "partner" with 
one's view of the relationship).   If they chose "married" (another option 
I am sure many gay couples answered) I believe the Census cleaned it up 
(although they may need to change that now).

Peace,

Jim

At 12:30 PM 7/12/00, Nathan wrote:
>I have to say that I am somewhat unimpressed by the argument since, as
>Michael points out, unmarried men living together does not mean gay
>partners.


>So given that single men living together correlates strongly with
>transient workers, high housing costs and hippie roots - all of which have
>arguably direct links with hacker-high tech culture - the correlation with
>"gay culture" seems mostly or completely projected onto the data.
>
>-- Nathan Newman

"What I see is a small world, inside a big world"

                         --Smith & Mighty