Comments on: The Alliance Defense Fund Lies to its Base

By: John B.

John B. — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 23:50:56 +0000

No mention of the poll that Mr. Raum does cite approvingly? The ADF-commissioned poll that shows that 62% of Americans are opposed to same-sex marriage? Maggie was apparently referring to this poll in her letter to Wall Street Journal blogger James Taranto who they obsequiously call “brilliant and witty” even after he has called NOM “deceptive” for a second time–and that was without questioning her poll number or wondering why it was so out-of-line with every other poll. Talk about deceptive!

NOM Responds to WSJ Columnist: “It’s Time To Fight For The Survival of Marriage” http://www.nomblog.com/11986

Although they do leave out his follow-up comments in their blog post. But of course this one poll, commissioned by a virulently anti-gay group, whose results make it an extreme outlier but tell them what they want to hear, is being touted as the TRUTH on NOM’s blog: http://www.nomblog.com/12105

No commentary from them on why this poll is any more credible than the ones they and their supporters routinely ridicule and decry. Also precious little information on the methodology of the P.O.S. (Public Opinion Strategies; I’m not making this up!) poll. But according to NOM this one P.O.S. poll, an extreme outlier that flies in the face of all other polls (and whose methodology they won’t release) is what proves all the OTHER polls are unreliable. Because they don’t like what all those other polls say.

By: Blake

Blake — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 21:15:57 +0000

Rob, I enjoyed your post but I do have one objection: I don’t think its fair to declare that “They don’t care” based on the responses to two comments. The comments’ responses, in my opinion, reflect the tendency of people on the internet to wrap themselves in an echo chamber wherein they hear & read only what supports their prejudiced worldview. People have a staggering ability to ignore fact, truth, and science if the results don’t conform to their prejudices. Oftentimes in such an environment any dissenting commentary is instantly equivalent to heresy. Hence the offhanded dismissals. There is no evidence Brian Raum even reads or follows-up on the comments. There is also no evidence that fair-minded readers didn’t dismiss the entire article upon seeing the comment by Lon. It appears the majority of the commentary attached to the article is the sort of otherworldly conversations that people have in comments sections. That is to say the majority of the 400 comments or so were probably made by about 40 people.

It appears Brian Raum really is just ignorant/arrogant.

By: Rob Tisinai

Rob Tisinai — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 20:05:22 +0000

Tristan, thanks for the correction — I did add it up wrong (lordy!). And thanks Zeke for pointing out where to find the missing 10%. I’ll update the post.

By: SharonB

SharonB — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 19:44:11 +0000

ADF Lies.

In other news, Water Wet; Fire, Hot!

By: TampaZeke

TampaZeke — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 19:16:55 +0000

@tristram, not once you add the 10% “not at all sure” back in. Then it’s 101%, hence the rounding disclaimer.

By: tristram

tristram — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 18:44:45 +0000

Rob- the adjusted numbers 43 and 48 add up to 91.

By: Rob Tisinai

Rob Tisinai — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 18:01:12 +0000

tristam, the rounding refers to the adjusted numbers (48% – 43%) adding up to 101% instead of 100%

By: tristram

tristram — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 17:54:50 +0000

“A bit more algebra says instead of 49 – 41 result favoring marriage equality, we’ll get a 48 – 43 victory (total percentage not equal to 100 due to rounding).”

There is a 9 or 10% discrepancy – isn’t it due to ‘no opinion/don’t know’-type responses rather than ’rounding’?

By: Rob Tisinai

Rob Tisinai — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 17:38:38 +0000

Excellent point, Travis.

By: Travis

Travis — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 17:19:35 +0000

Wouldn’t the easist way to refute this be just to give LGBT the 1.7% weight he claims is correct, do the math and show that a plurality is still in favor of marriage equality. It looks like that would still be about 47% vs 44%. So even his best case scenario has him losing on the losing side.

Then point out that the plurality is an underestimate for all the reasons you mention.