Gallup Does Mention One Thing....

This is an interesting bit of data, certainly, and I'm not here to minimize the effect of the HodgesObergefell decision (I've (jokingly) mentioned that I've known Jim was gay longer than he has, right? College friends from back in the day), or even really comment on that. As usual, I have this odd take on this bit of data (and one point that isn't mine at all)

LGBT marriage rates have increased, but not as much as you might think. Indeed, as the text of the article points out, it may have actually slowed a little after the big push last year when it all became legal.

On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court issued the Obergefell decision. As would be expected, the number of same-sex marriages has increased, though the rate of increase has slowed.

One thing I can't figure out is the two different numbers cited:

Two years after the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that states could not prohibit same-sex marriages, 10.2% of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) adults in the U.S. are married to a same-sex spouse. That is up from 7.9% in the months prior to the Supreme Court decision in 2015, but only marginally higher than the 9.6% measured in the first year after the ruling.

But then says:

As a result of these shifts, Gallup estimates that 61% of same-sex, cohabiting couples in the U.S. are now married, up from 38% before the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in June 2015, and 49% one year ago. 

 

Huh?

Anyway, here's someone else's point (Rush Limbaugh): not as many gay people want to get married as everyone seemed to think, so the issue was overblown in many ways. Yes, there were plenty of folks that wanted to get legally married, don't mistake the point, it's just that the storyline overstated that number, and therefore the reach of the "historic" decision was far smaller than the average ally thought. There is data to support that idea in this story:

An increasing percentage of LGBT adults now identify their marital status as single or never married. That has always been the dominant status among LGBT individuals, but has increased from 47.4% to 55.7% over the last two years.

Now, I immediately noticed a line in the data (my emphasis below) that I am impressed that Gallup chose to include:

 LGBT Americans are still more likely to be married to an opposite-sex spouse (13.1%) than a same-sex spouse (10.2%), but the gap is narrowing. According to prior research on LGBT identification, roughly half of those who self-identify as LGBT are bisexual, helping explaining the high proportion of LGBT individuals who are married to opposite-sex partners. Gallup's question does not probe specifically for whether LGBT individuals are lesbian or gay or bisexual or transgender.

Interesting, eh?

With Gallup reporting that according to their research

Overall, 4.3% of U.S. adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, according to Gallup's latest estimate from its June 2016-June 2017 tracking data. That is up from 3.9% a year ago and 3.4% in Gallup's initial estimate in 2012. 

I find it interesting that it's still a tiny percentage of the population that was affected by this massive media story (although it's still a largish actual number: 2015 census says 247,773,709 adults, so that's like 10.6 million people), and the subset of that number that got married in light of the Supreme Court decision is pretty small. Let's do some math.

Using the 2015 number above, and that 4.3% percentage according to Gallup, there are approximately

• 10,654,269 adult LGBT people in the US.
• 841,687 married prior to HodgesObergefell (7.9%)
• 1,086,735 married after two years (10.2%)
• so 245,048 adults got married as a result, so far. (this is off by a little, as we are using 2015 numbers, I get that.)

That's .000989% of the adults in the US. 

That's a lot of hubbub for a very very small group. I have said that the US Constitution has been described as a document to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority (not my line, obviously), so this fits into that mold, I guess, but wow, what a lot of attention given to an issue that has a ridiculously tiny reach. Perspective, people. 

I Must Rant For A Moment. Triggered, Indeed.

I admit it, I was "triggered" by a Facebook post of a high school friend, a clickbait headline about Science Disproving Transphobia or some similar drivel.

Are people phobic about trans people? I don't think so. I mean, that's a catch-all kind of statement in the first place. Yes, there are people who are scared of trans people, the idea of trans people, etc, just as there are people in the country (and the world) that are racist, but I believe we are no longer what any sane person can call a "racist nation."

The entire bathroom flap about trans people was started by the prog/lib/dems deciding that there was a problem for this unbelievably small number of people and THERE NEEDS TO BE A LAW to decide that THEY CAN USE WHATEVER BATHROOM I IDENTIFY WITH BECAUSE they said so.

Now, is it reasonable that people should be able to go to the bathroom? Yup.

Is it reasonable that people should not be bullied or assaulted because of this? Yup. How often was that happening? I dunno. Too often, no matter them actual number

However, when you say PAY ATTENTION TO THIS TINY ISSUE, WE ARE MAKING A LAW ABOUT IT, people pay attention.

This resulted in conservative/repub lawmakers saying YOU CAN'T MAKE US ACCEPT THIS LAW because Religion and stuff! Dems lit a fire, Repubs threw gasoline on it, like always.

So, the last POTUS signed an order about schools and bathrooms, then the new POTUS signed an order rescinding it, saying clearly "this isn't a federal issue, schools can make whatever policy suits them about bathrooms without a federal mandate." **It's worthy to note that Trump has been by far the most LGBT-friendly presidential candidate in our history, if you are paying attention.

This, I assume caused the post (and article) that "triggered" me.

So, where's the rant?

People aren't afraid of trans, they are afraid of perverts and pedophiles. That's the objection. We have been carefully taught (catch the South Pacific reference?) that ALL MEN ARE PREDATORS by the extremist lefty prog anti-rape-culture feminist pogrom for my entire time on earth and maybe longer than that. All. Men. Are. Predators.

Every class, training, sensitivity session that has taught our young men and women about harassment, rape, etc, has emphasized how bad men are, and this is the fruit of this education, folks.

We all now know beyond that shadow of doubt that men cannot be trusted with children, or women. I cannot even so much as coach my children's teams without approval from the school, archdiocese, FBI and state police. I cannot be alone with the team even after that (2 adults always!) because I still may be a predator or perv (or may still be accused of predatoring or perving if alone without a corroborating witness, who is there to protect me and my reputation just as I am there for them). When I first went through the vetting process as a M Ed student, we were carefully instructed to never being alone with students, or if conferencing, keeping the door open and alerting a colleague to the sensitive situation if no one could chaperone so that we couldn't even be accused of the unavoidable, expected sexual assaults we couldn't help but perpetrate on our students....

So, excuse us if we think giving adult-males-that-may-be-predators the legal ability to share our daughters' (and sons') bathrooms and locker rooms is a problem. We aren't afraid a trans kid is going to hurt them, we are afraid a predator is going to waltz in right in front of us instead of having to sneak in while we are trying to protect our kids.