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From: maf@unisoft.UUCP (Mary Ann K. Finnerty)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Re: Statistics on San Francisco homosexuals
Message-ID: <367@unisoft.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Dec-84 12:25:25 EST
Article-I.D.: unisoft.367
Posted: Tue Dec 11 12:25:25 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Dec-84 03:30:29 EST
References: <528@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Organization: UniSoft Corp., Berkeley
Lines: 39


>  In an Associated Press story in the Nov 23rd New York Times,
>  the results of a survey of San Francisco homosexuals is presented,
>  along with some debate about the survey.  Some excerpts:
>  
>  Forty percent of the single men in San Francisco are homosexual,
>  and most of them are well-educated and earning more than $20,000
>  a year, according to a professional survey.
>
>  The survey by the Research and Decisions Corporation,
>  commissioned by the city-financed SF AIDS Foundation,
>  was designed to produce the first reliable statistics on
>  the city's homosexuals.
>

It is important to note a few important things about that survey:

1) that the survey was NOT a random sample,

2) the 500 were TELEPHONE interviews and more than 10% of the 
   salaries reported have already been declared as inflated
   and the investigation has just begun...think about it -
   if you weren't making much money and someone asked you
   how much you were making, in a telephone interview, wouldn't
   you be inclined to inflate it a little bit???

Another factor is that homophobia comes in many forms,
and even homosexuals can have some residual homophobia
from growing up in a world determined to assume that
everyone is heterosexual...Thinking that gay men are
all highly educated and affluent is just a softer homophobia -
like the antisemitism in prewar Germany grown from the
view of Jews as being so wealthy and educated such homophobia
could be used against us...

just a thought from a lesbian here in sf...

maf