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So your statistical analysis is based on the number of gay people who live with their partners who reported it in the census then?
Does this mean that if you don't live with your partner (or if you don't have one at all) you're not actually whatever your sexual orientation is?
It is commonly accepted in the media that there are less than 1% gay people in New Zealand. You read it in letters to the editor, see it on current affairs shows and all over the place. No one has ever stepped up to say anything about it being untrue. So no, I don't know where the figure comes from, but I will try and find out for you.
The 10% figure hasn't been shown in scientific research - I only bring this up because I teach a class on uses/abuses of statistics and this figure is a "myth". Kinsey's research is renouned as incredibly flawed... As for what the "real" figure is - they'll probably never be a definite answer as sexuality isn't black and white. Scientific research usually points to a 1-4% figure in humans (dependent on gender, age and physical environment).
Fair enough - I know all research has its flaws. In every circle I've ever moved in(work, socially, locally, whatever) I've found at least 10% of the people are out. But obviously there's a lot of gender, age and physical environment considerations that'd need to be made there.
Sorry, I know this sounds like I'm quibbling and stuff, but it is related to the general topic, because things like the Civil Unions Bill are an election issue, so I take exception to someone claiming that it's something that only a handful of people wanted.
No problem
Now this is getting too skinny 
I think you're going to run into trouble if you're going to accept what people say in Letters to the Editor as gospel. But yeah, I would love to see where the figures came from. I'd say it'd be something more like at least 1 in 10 people identify primarily as bisexual or homosexual. This wikipedia entry talks about how Kinsey estimated in the 1940s - when society as a whole was a lot more opressive and people were more likely to play it straight, so to speak - that 4% of people were homosexual, and it also talks about how about 8% of sheep are gay...
Well, we're talking about NZ here where the accepted figure is less than 1% not 10% according to what I hear. I've heard the figure brought up by that guy Tamaki from Destiny when he was interviewed on Holmes, and he was also interviewed on that Willie Jackson talk show on Saturday morning. Georgina Bayer was also on the same show, and surely she would have corrected him if it had been wrong.
As for Kinsey, I read recently that studies show that the amount is way below his figure of 10%. Kinsey used many prisoners etc as his subjects to get that figure, so it is fundamentally flawed to begin with. (see below)
And yes, I believe the Civil Union Bill was something only a handful of people wanted.
--snip--
Researchers into Kinsey's methods, which purportedly catalogue normal
sexuality, have noted that he loaded the ranks of his test subjects
with an inordinately high number of persons imprisoned for sex
deviancy, prostitutes and child molesters, criminals estimated by one
researcher as providing as high as one third of his overall subjects.
Kinsey entered them into his database as normal examples of the
population Kinsey's manipulation extended to his choice of staff.
---snip--
"Oh yeah, and Ian Wishart says soy milk makes you gay."
Okay, I take back all the bad things I ever said about him. I thought it was the fact that I liked girls sometimes that made me gay, but it's all so obvious now - it's my latte.
No, your cappacino
And it all depends whether you drink it in a city cafe' or not
Again, I have seen no evidence that he said this.
I think they're all just as bad, and I'm not naive enough to think that ministers don't have agendas, but Labour has made too many way-out desicions in their term.
HUGE sweeping changes to promote her little manifesto :/
She has double standards, too. Accepting the authority of the UN about the war in Iraq, but when they told her that legalizing prostitution was a bad idea, she went ahead and did it anyway.
It's an insult to women, and all part of her plan to break apart the family.
Now younger and younger girls are doing it, and the police can't do anything to stop it.
I sure won't be voting for her, and nor will a lot of ppl I know.
If they get in again, I'm sure this country is in for an even bigger shock
I dont think it's an insult to women to be allowed to make a career choice of their choosing.
It would have been an insult to maintain the status quo and arrest woman for providing a service that ultimately would not be there should a male (majority) not want to utilise it.
True, but isn't it also legalizing the abuse of women? (and yes, by men) I see it that way.
And, if something is inherently wrong and illegal, you don't legalize it to protect those who are doing it.
I mean, dealing drugs is also illegal, but we don't legalize it so that the innocent drug dealers won't be hurt or harmed.
If it was still illegal to do, it wouldn't be so easy for young girls to get into it
Maybe I'm reading this wrong but how are you comparing legalising prostitution to legalising abuse in general?
I'm not - I'm saying both prostiution and dealing drugs are (or were) illegal, and the stupidity of legalizing something because the people who are doing the illegal thing are putting themselves in harms way.
I mean it's the drug-dealers choice to be doing what they're doing - why don't we make that legal, too? They are in just as much danger (or more) than the prostitutes were.
A bit extreme don't you think?
I have sex. I don't do drugs.
And if I got paid to have sex - would that suddenly inspire me to have a P addiction, or the likes?
I really don't understand where you're coming from
*sigh* I'll try and explain.
Prostitution was basically legalized to give prostitutes protection, right? Because of the dangers in doing what they are doing, they wanted to make it legal so the police could step in if one of them got beaten up, etc.
That's putting it simplistically.
So something that was illegal was made legal to protect the people doing it.
I'm saying that the same thnig could be said of drug dealers. I'm sure they are in just as much or even more danger. So, using the same logic, why not make drug dealing legal as well? Or anything else illegal?
Gosh it must be so hard trying to explain your theory to someone so uneducated *sigh* :S
I'm saying your comparison is extreme. Someone who chooses to have sex and charge for it is nowhere near in the same league as someone who chooses to sell drugs.
Sex is not illegal. And prostitution - when it was illegal - was a waste of police resources.
Oh yes cuz we all know there'll be no shocks if National [or any other party] get in.
Well, with National, at least the country sort of plodded along with nothing too controversial happening. Labour gets in and all of a sudden the country is turned upside down. I didn't used to care much one way or the other which side got in, but this last term is just too much. And it's not stuff thats easy to reverse.
For instance, I remember reading somewhere that there was a big meeting of all the leaders of countries deciding upon the basic family unit etc. Something like 143 out of 170 countries decided that the family unit that worked and should be promoted and protected and that was the best for children was the Mother-Father-Child unit. Of course NZ was one of the countries that didn't sign....
So, no, we can't use the excuse that civil unions are the way the world is moving. It's not.
Helen is anti-family. She had a bad childhood (see http://www.investigatemagazine.com/nov03paradise.htm ) and is forcing her own warped views on the rest of the country.
Oh, and that anti-smacking bill is bull. Of course no one wants real violence toward kids, but anti-smacking will have the opposite effect. If that bill goes through, no way am I having kids in this country...
Ok, the country turning upside down is a matter of opinion - if you look at National's history, it's not pretty.
It seems Labour's been a bit screwy with money but I'm voting them. I think Helen Clark has been a great PM - I'd pick her over Don Brash [vomit] any bloody day.
Labour all the way
might vote labour this year...
usually vote national.... being the capitalist warmongering swine that I am....
but labour have been quite good to the elderly....
And we'll be half way through voting our Top 10 down to the winner of NZ Idol too!