> Seems like take your pick of polls...
I'm not an expert in the science (?) of polling, but I think I've seen several stories recently noting that pollers are getting increasingly frustrated trying to find valid samples, given that they get a lot of answering machines when they try to call folks, or when they do reach them, folks refuse to participate, etc.
On top of that, when you try to poll on a subject which is as fraught with psychological, mythological, ideological, etc., overtones and undertones as this one is, it is even more meaningless to just report the results of shallow questions like "Do you favor same-sex whatever?" than it is in the standard political poll: "Would you vote for candidate X?"
Basically, I think that some polls on attitudes to gay sex/marriage/adoption, etc., may have some validity, but it's very hard to tell from news stories which ones are worth paying attention to, or what significance those polls might actually have.
On the question of whether the Supreme Court decision was "good for the gays" (a variation on "good for the Jews") or not, I answer "no opinion," being, I'm afraid, straight myself, but I can't understand the logic of implying that it was a bad idea to bring the case to the SC in the first place. So minorities should stifle themselves in the courts for fear that if they win public opinion might turn against them? How is that supposed to work? Would it have applied, for example, Brown vs. Board of Education or Roe vs. Wade? And is the implied assumption that gays and their allies pinned all their hopes on legal action and haven't been doing any other kind of political activity really true? It doesn't seem so to me.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org _____________________________ Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx