In light of recent controversy, HRC offered The Advocate some more details on their self-affirming ENDA survey, including the exact wording of its questions.
The move comes after journos Cindy Laird and Rex Wockner sent HRC president Joe Solmonese a letter asking for some answers:
We feel that HRC, as the largest LGBT organization in the country, owes a complete and full explanation about its poll, in the interest of transparency to its members and to LGBT people in general.
…
Mr. Luna (HRC communications director Brad Luna) told Ms.Laird that they were not HRC members and were not subscribers of The Advocate.If this is the case, how were they identified as LGBT? It is our educated guess that most polling organizations, to get a random sample of 500 LGBT people, would need to telephone in the neighborhood of 10,000 Americans at random.
If this is the case, how could this be done in one day, October 26th, as reported in The Advocate story.
That detail’s definitely cleared up by The Advocate, which says the Knowledge Networks, Inc conducted survey took place October 2-5. Read the results after the jump…
From The Advocate:
The poll, a random survey of 514 LGBT Americans conducted by Knowledge Networks, Inc., of Menlo Park, Ca., asked participants two questions concerning ENDA. The first asked which of the following three statements was closest to reflecting their views:
A. National gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender civil rights organizations should oppose this proposal because it excludes transgender people.
B. National gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender civil rights organizations should support this proposal because it helps gay, lesbian, and bisexual workers and is a step toward transgender employment rights.
C. National gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender civil rights organizations should adopt a neutral stance for this proposal because while it helps gay, lesbians, and bisexual workers, it also excludes transgender people.
Of those surveyed, 67.7% agreed with statement B, while 15.8% agreed with statement A, 12.8% agreed with statement C, and 3.6% did not answer.
The second question asked people the following: “This proposal would make it illegal to fire gay, lesbian, or bisexual workers because of their sexual orientation. This proposal does NOT include people who are transgender. Would you favor or oppose this proposal?”
In response, 59.1% said they favored the proposal and felt strongly about it, 15.4% said they favored it but did not feel strongly about it, 15.1% opposed it and felt strongly about it, 8.8% opposed it but did not feel strongly about it, and 1.6% did not answer.
Of the 514 people the poll surveyed, 246 respondents identified as male, 262 identified as female, five identified as female-to-male transgender, and one person identified as male-to-female transgender. The poll was conducted between October 2-5. The margin of error was not available at the time of this posting.
praenomenal
Do the word statistical bias mean anything anymore. 500 people in a random sample is not a good sample.
And out of 500 there are only 6 trans people. We are worth 1%? ONE FUCKING PERCENT!
Leland Frances
I believe from prior postings that you mean well praenomenal, but what evidence do you have that more than 1% are “trans”?
Regardless, anyone OBJECTIVE that has a few years on them as an out person knows that you don’t need a survey to tell you that a majority of gays and lesbians would NOT commit civil rights suicide as proposed by ENDA Insane.
They also know that if this survey had SUPPORTED the hysterical claims and number games of ENDA Insane, Laird, Wockner, and, sadly, Queerty, would not STILL be trying to debunk it even after the ENDA ship has sailed.
praenomenal
Leland.
It is not the responsibility of people to debunk statistics, It should be the responsibility of statisticians to reduce bias in a given sample, unless your aim is create statistics to back up your claims. This is an easy to do and oft neglected issue.
I again say, it is easy from your perspective to call people ENDA Insane, it is not quite so easy to be on the other side.
If there were reliable evidence that the T in GLBT were a 1% kinda thing then yes, there would not be a problem. However that is unlikely.
Even then, that does not mean we are worthless and not deserving of rights. For a community that is a very small part of the over all population, many gays, have sure been eager to not support inclusiveness for the least of us. I hear the trumpeted by most gay organizations and activists time and time again.
Of course it is easy to do that when it does not directly effect you.
Leland Frances
Actually, some people make challenging whatever a career, as the Amazing Randy or whatever his name is does with people who claim to have real magical powers. Kinda like the con artists behind ENDA Insane.
Laird, et al., have CHOSEN to try to debunk this study because, again, they don’t like the results.
But to disagree with their position and their tactics is NOT the same as saying one doesn’t “support inclusiveness for the least of us.” THAT is one of the sins of this self-appointed group, that they have misrepresented what most people have said. Read the survey’s questions. It focues on opinions about the bill. Only a professional victim could read into it that it is asking people to take a position on trans equality itself. The method is all that was surveyed and Laird, et al’s, motives for a pointless post mortem reflect their involvement in the maddness.
praenomenal
Not exactly. This data was used as an excuse to promote trans exclusion. Therefor it opens the door to analysis. If it had been done just to do that would be one thing, however when used as a basis for a decision effecting thousands of people The statistical bias becomes an issue. I am not trying to debunk anything, however there is a pretty impressive bias in this study that I think deserves explanation.
It, to me, is not a misrepresentation of what people say. It is quite simply a fact. How much money was raised by trans people at SCC when HRC promised to support us 100%? Granted he rescinded the statement as a foible, but not till last week. Over and over again trans people have contributed to HRC to help the wold community. We were left out. I can understand you being happy about it, you are closer than ever to being protected. But how dare you call me ENDA Insain for calling bullshit where it needs to be called. You have every right to rejoice. But a lot of us don’t and there will be repercussions, for HRC and for elected officials and the LGBT community as a whole for years.
HRC lied. There is no way around that. The lied and got something done. For many the ends will justify the means. But not to me or my family.
Becca
HRC obviously failed their Statistics class. 514 is not a usable sample space.
hisurfer
Regardless of anyone’s position of ENDA, using questionable polls harms an agency’s creditability. HRC isn’t alone – I’ve volunteered for other gay organizations that will conduct a half-assed biased poll and then treat the results as gospel. It’s not an effective way of creating change.
Leland Frances
Prae, prae. I’m not happy, nor rejoice that Congress was not mature enough to include protections for transgenders which you are still absurdly blaming on others. And, sorry to disappoint you, but I already live where both gays and transgenders are protected. I wasn’t out to serve myself.
And please, once again, I beg you, for your own sanity, stop with the hallucinations about HRC or anyone of note “promoting” “trans exclusion.” They promoted the bill that would pass. Period. Making it more than it was is like saying by eating an apple I’m attacking oranges.
praenomenal
Leland,
HRC broke a promise to me and my people. Thats all there is and ever will be too it. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
HRC failed. Congress failed.
I was not meaning to imply that you were out to serve yourself. Mearly that while many can feel happy and vindicated, many cannot.
Furthermore Becca is right, it is just bad statistics.
How about this, why release this info right before the vote, when they pulled support. They had the report weeks before that. Why only release the sample data AFTER the vote.
It is either incompetence or an intentional lack of transparency. You tell me how I am supposed to interpret that as a Trans women.
Rt. Rev. Dr. RES
You are absolutely correct in my view, Praenomenal. You were betrayed on the altar of expediency, and by a right wing willing and able to make DLC and DINO “democrats” capitulate to their demands by dividing the minority and creating a watered down compromise favouring the theocons.
Democrat and Republican ……two wings of the same bird, and both of them are giving you the finger.
Do you know that protection in Canada and other nations is sex reassignment surgery paid for as a legitimate surgical procedure with the universal medical care system destroyed in your country by the corporate fatcats and unbridled capitalists posing as physicians and insurance companies??
lyssa
Actually, HRC has a LONG history of betraying transpeople. This is not new, although it may appear to be so to gays who are only recently becoming aware of trans contributions to gay rights and who are not blinded by their own transphobia (e.g. Leland).
Consider the following:
http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2007/10/why-transgender-community-hates-hrc.html
http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2007/10/barney-come-clean.html
http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2007/10/enda-insanity.html
The gays have a lot to answer for.
Nigel S-S
As my husband said earlier, how long will certain organizations and persons stop using the full acronym L G B T.
I would expect the persons who wanted a non-inclusive ENDA should now use GLB or LBG. The rest of us will still use the “T” honestly and with integrity.
My husband makes a good point about bisexuality as the next possible victim. Of course, when the neocons and theocons point to gays and lesbians and use words like ” lifestyle choice “, they point to bisexuals as being able to honestly choose between the two sexes. I know more individuals who have trouble with bisexuals and bisexuality than they do with sex reassignment and transsexuality.
I happen to believe that there are individuals who are hard-wired to accept and give psychosexual conjugal love from both sexes. If you read some quacks, they will point to bisexuals as evidence that all gays and lesbians can “choose heterosexual behaviour”.
When you start to unravel the LGBT because a few pragmatic politicians want to betray their community by inches and not yards, you may achieve the law of unintended consequences.
lyssa
Nigel
It could get worse…there was a time when it was the GLF, and the lesbians were the outsiders.
Pastor Neimoller is watching us…Will we learn?
Like what you say about bisexuals, I know of folks who approve of me, but who are intoleraant of gays. “But if they wanted to sleep with men, why don’t they become women?”
I defend gay men when that happens. Now…I don’t know what I’ll do.
SURVIOR
Пыдров надо ебашить шоб кишки повылазили у падл.
Rt. Rev. Dr. RES
No luck in using translation tools online. Some words translate and many do not. I suspect that the person speaks English or he could not reply- even in his own language.
dbb
The sad part is this bill will not get signed into law whether it included T in LBGT or not, so HRC so they could send out a fundraising letter betrayed part of its constituents. They and Congress should of done the right thing and kept transgered rights in the bill, but instead part of our comunity was left behind and none of us are the better for it.
Bill Perdue
I agree. We have to bypass HRC and let them wither on the vine. We need our own massive, democratic, ‘pushy’ movement that will accept nothing less that equality. And that’s what will grow out of UnitedENDA and the sentiment it represents.
But that’s just the first step.
In 1820, discussing the future of the Union and slavery, Thomas Jefferson said “… this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror.” The passage of the fake ENDA by HRC, Frank, Pelosi and most Democrats is our fire bell in the night.
The Democrats and their toadies like HRC lost out big time when they betrayed us. In terms of court fights their bill is DOA and everyone knows it by now.
The creation of UnitedENDA and the politicization of what appears to be tens of thousands of activists around this question is a key step forward on the road to the creation of independent POLITICAL action by our movement.
For several years the foreshocks of a deep seated social crisis have been spreading across the political landscape. The signs are everywhere. It’s not everyday that you see the long suffering American people having more confidence in the worst president in US history than in Congress but that’s been the case for months.
The two parties used to huddle comfortably in the middle but now their open loathing of one another and fierce rivalry are scaring the socks off the polysci types. A few years ago a group of the most militant unions in the country met and founded the US Labor Party. Two years ago at a conference of the AFL-CIO’s Coalition of Black Trade Unionists the CBTU president called for a break with the two parties and the creation of independent political action groups by African Americans. The CBTU represents several hundred thousand members. The AFL-CIO itself split right down the middle last year over the question of wasting money on the Democratic party of NAFTA and union busting or spending it on organizing.
Now our pursuit of an independent political voice will join with voices raised in trade unions and in the minority and immigrant communities. Those voices will be amplified by the anger and frustration of the people over health care, a declining standard of living and worsening working conditions and particularly about the oil war. At some point, and this is what we have to plan for and embrace, the compressed power of these political pressures that will blow apart the old political system.
Like the Minutemen who broke the back of Imperial England, the Civil War Republicans, the rise of the CIO and the antiwar and feminist movements of the 60’s and 70’s we’ll get our chance to change American history.
We can’t do it if we’re locked into the twin parties. We have to do the hard work of creating our own party and in that party our own strong voice. For a clear example of how that works check out the website of the New Zealand Rainbow Labour Group, who have several members in the NZ Parliament at
PhyllisMs
They had to do a poll? Any reason you can think of why they didn’t poll over three hundred organizations standing firmly on the side of inclusion? I wonder why did they not call any of those for their opinions? They’d rathter take the opinions of 500 randomly drawn people over the 300 hundred organizations? I smell a rat, but I smell fish too and I think the cat will get the rat.
“Two can keep a secret if one is dead” and “the sea always gives up it’s dead”.
matt123
No need the poll.
http://www.findbilover.com