kura ya maoni of Republicans Met With Shock, Skepticism 

Debate Topics: The reliability of polls and surveys; Are republicans reaching extremism levels; Is Obama doing a good job as president; Does the media have a liberal or conservative slant; How do news outlets affect the opinions of their viewers...

'•Only 26 percent favor letting openly gay Americans serve in the military.'

You have got to be kidding me.

Yeah, but I love this quote at the end, and it's very relevant to what we do here:

"It's human nature for people to interpret any poll in a way that reinforces what they already believe. And if they can't, they simply dismiss the research as being flawed. Perhaps that is the real takeaway from this survey."

Does anyone agree or disagree with the above statement? I very much agree. One of the tools in your kit in a debate classroom is to attack the source of the opposing side. Polls and surveys are easily attacked more than any other kind of information because you can assert researcher bias, contaminated sample pool, etc, etc.

I mean, take for example the concept of "curing" homosexuality. There have been several studies done on whether or not this can be done and, depending on who funded the study, the results are always biased. Often you'll find the exact same study, one done by, let's say, a Democratic Political Organization and the other one done by, maybe, a Christian Research Lab, and their results will be the exact opposite.

If the researchers don't color their own research then, as the quote points out, the interpreter definitely will. The people at the DPO will slam the people over at the CRL saying that their study was invalid, and meanwhile the CRL will claim the same of the DPO.

So I guess surveys and polls aren't as telling as people like to believe.

EDIT: Spelling

Yes, I definately agree with the statement. And if the person who wrote the survey wrote it to make Republicans seem extreme, then that's the results he's most likely gonna get.

Surveys and polls are not usually very telling. They're reliable but usually not very valid.

Still, that 'statistic' scares me. I don't see how one's sexuality even comes into it. It's people's rights as humans to apply for that job.

Out-of-the-closet gays are treated as second-class citizens in more social arenas than people think. Like racism, it's not gone from the public life, just veiled and mutated into something just as ugly.

I agree, and it's horrible. If someone disagrees with homosexuality, then fine. Believe that. But don't let that belief interefere with their rights as human beings.

This is a bit random, but I know you're super clever lol, does the US have something similar to the UK Sex Discrimination Act? (deals with gender, sexuality, relationship status, etc)