U.S. Adults Overestimate Homosexual Population by As Much As Tenfold
Thursday, June 02, 2011
By Andrew Herzog


(AP Photo/Noah Berger)
Same-sex marriage supporters celebrate a federal judge's decision overturning California's same-sex marriage ban on Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2010, in San Francisco.

(CNSNews.com) –While a recent Gallup poll showed that U.S. adults, on average, think homosexuals make up about 25 percent of the entire population, official data reveal that gays and lesbians comprise between 2 percent and 4 percent of the population.

In a May 5-8 telephone survey, Gallup asked more than 1,000 U.S. adults in all 50 states: “Just your best guess, what percent of Americans today would you say are gay or lesbian?”

The adults polled estimated that 25 percent – one quarter of all Americans – are gay or lesbian.

According to Gallup, over half of Americans (52 percent) said that at least one in five Americans is homosexual, and 35 percent estimated more than one in four. Only 30 percent estimated under 15 percent.

However, official estimates of the homosexual population range from 2 to 4 percent – well under the 25 percent “guesstimate.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, which began asking questions about same-sex household information in the 1990 Census, only 581,300 individuals were part of a same-sex household in 2009. That’s less than one-half of one percent (0.5 percent) of the 307 million people living in the U.S. in 2009.

Furthermore, data from the Census Bureau's 2010 Demographic Profile shows that “same-sex spouses” accounted for a mere 2.5 percent of the U.S. population, which is nearly 8 million people out of the total 309 million Americans.

The 2006-2008 National Survey of Family Growth found that 3.7 percent of adults aged 18 to 44 were homosexual or bisexual. The survey is administered by the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the federal Centers for Disease Control. It consists of an in-person interview in which the respondent enters his or her own answers into the computer without telling them to an interviewer.

The University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center, which has been conducting scientifically designed surveys on homosexuality for close to 30 years – far longer than the U.S. Census Bureau – found the percentage of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals in the United States in 2008 was 2 percent – a number that has been stable since the late ‘80s, according to Tom Smith, director of the General Social Survey at NORC. (pg. 57)

“In general, these figures have changed little from our first studies in the late 1980s through 2010,” Smith told CNSNews.com.

The Gallup poll was a random digit dial telephone interview which surveyed 1,018 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia on May 5-8, 2011. The margin of error was plus-or-minus 4 percentage points.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/us-a...ual-popula

Closer to 2% than 4.

It's higher than two.

If 2.5% are "same-sex spouses" at a time when gay marriage isn't even legal in all but 5 or six states, that indicates a higher number than 2% for the overall population.

On an anecdotal note, off the cuff I can think of 4 in my class of 237, which is 1.6% in a private, religious high school. That doesn't include the ones everyone picked on because they seemed so homosexual.

The other part of this - if you believe Kinsey - is that it's not always one way or another; some are somewhere in the middle.

I always heard 10%, but that sounds a bit high to me. I'd venture to say it's more like 6-8%.

The data in this article is suspect. It was already pointed out about the deficiency of the same sex spouse argument, but the same sex "household" is equally flawed. What about all the single gays? They don't count?

Anyway, it's obviously not 25%; that is pretty odd that the Gallup poll found perceptions to be that off. But, it's a lot higher than 2-4%, IMO.

For some reason I thought that I heard 10% of guys are gay and 4% of women are lesbians. Can't remember where I heard that though.

To many for me, not a fan but to each their own.

(06-07-2011 03:43 PM)BearcatsUC Wrote:  It's higher than two.

If 2.5% are "same-sex spouses" at a time when gay marriage isn't even legal in all but 5 or six states, that indicates a higher number than 2% for the overall population.

On an anecdotal note, off the cuff I can think of 4 in my class of 237, which is 1.6% in a private, religious high school. That doesn't include the ones everyone picked on because they seemed so homosexual.

The other part of this - if you believe Kinsey - is that it's not always one way or another; some are somewhere in the middle.

And some go back and forth.

(06-08-2011 08:25 AM)converrl Wrote:  

(06-07-2011 03:43 PM)BearcatsUC Wrote:  It's higher than two.

If 2.5% are "same-sex spouses" at a time when gay marriage isn't even legal in all but 5 or six states, that indicates a higher number than 2% for the overall population.

On an anecdotal note, off the cuff I can think of 4 in my class of 237, which is 1.6% in a private, religious high school. That doesn't include the ones everyone picked on because they seemed so homosexual.

The other part of this - if you believe Kinsey - is that it's not always one way or another; some are somewhere in the middle.

And some go back and forth.

...thus the "back and forth."

(06-08-2011 08:25 AM)converrl Wrote:  

(06-07-2011 03:43 PM)BearcatsUC Wrote:  It's higher than two.

If 2.5% are "same-sex spouses" at a time when gay marriage isn't even legal in all but 5 or six states, that indicates a higher number than 2% for the overall population.

On an anecdotal note, off the cuff I can think of 4 in my class of 237, which is 1.6% in a private, religious high school. That doesn't include the ones everyone picked on because they seemed so homosexual.

The other part of this - if you believe Kinsey - is that it's not always one way or another; some are somewhere in the middle.

And some go back and forth.

Like Anne Heche who declared herself absolutely, positively, 100% gay before a crowd of adoring lesbians.


By the way, I stick to my closer to 2%.

(06-08-2011 08:25 AM)converrl Wrote:  

(06-07-2011 03:43 PM)BearcatsUC Wrote:  It's higher than two.

If 2.5% are "same-sex spouses" at a time when gay marriage isn't even legal in all but 5 or six states, that indicates a higher number than 2% for the overall population.

On an anecdotal note, off the cuff I can think of 4 in my class of 237, which is 1.6% in a private, religious high school. That doesn't include the ones everyone picked on because they seemed so homosexual.

The other part of this - if you believe Kinsey - is that it's not always one way or another; some are somewhere in the middle.

And some go back and forth.

And in and out.