what do you think is the percentage of gay vs. straight people in the U.S.?

Question

Also, do you think that gay people are born gay or become gay later in life due to a chemical imbalance in their brain?

Answer 1

Current research, despite what some of the stubborn users here have said, indicate that most incidences of homosexuality are predetermined at birth. The latest study published in the last month or two, confirms some long-standing data on brothers. It would indicate that if a woman has multiple sons, it is more likely that if one is gay, he was born later than the others. Some intelligent speculation, moving towards medical theory, is that the female sends some antibodies to the womb to combat male hormones which seem foreign to her system, and that as a mother ages, she is less able to produce these antibodies. It's going to take a lot more study to confirm, or deny this as a theory.

The question on percentage of homosexuals is a difficult one, which has been researched extensively. A good estimate would be that somewhere around 6 percent of males and a few more females are exclusively homosexual. Defining bisexual becomes more difficult, because of the way people would label themselves, and because there is no clear cut definition. Does one same-sex experience move a person from the hetero to the homo column of the chart? Probably not. But how many? Is affection, as well as sexual activity included? Wow. What about your fantasy life? If a person has always acted heterosexually, but had a homosexul or bisexul dream, what is he or she?

Answer 2

Percentage who are interested is high, but percentage of people who will own up to it is not very high. Then there are those who are both, which I believe most people are to some degree. It only makes sense since it would enable better relationships of all kinds, not only sexual, in a social species such as the human race.

Homosexuality is a species self preservation against overpopulation. Some people are born homosexual, some learn it when they are young and imprinting on life. Some become bi or homosexual after life goes on. I believe most people are born with the chance to go either way, or both ways. It is not a mental illness. It is not a chemical imbalance. It is not a choice.

The percentage of homosexual people goes up when the percentage of single parent households goes up.

Answer 3

The only accurate statistic so far is 1.51% of the US population in the last census were willing to publically identify themselves to the government as gay.

I can tell you the closet is packed and I have lost count. the number that has floated around for decades is 10% of the population is gay.

Homosexuality is not a mental illness (chemical imbalance) that was the thinking as late as the 50's but Psychiatric science has dispelled that belief.

A person is born gay infact The Human Genome project is thinks it has identified the "gay gene"

Answer 4

That's a statistic very hard to identify because it's something that is so taboo many people lie about it. The most common statistic is about 10%, however I personally think that is low. How low I can't even begin to estimate. I found Kinseys study interesting tho because he the % of people 100% homosexual OR heterosexual is minute. Very very VERY few people are either, most people fall into a middle range of bisexuality.

I also think it's interesting where I work...I work with mentally and physically challenged people... That the number of same sex relations between clients, or "crushes" on same sex staff is staggeringly high!! But not exclusive same-sex...they generally will have a crush on anyone they trust/ find attractive/ respect, of either gender. Which indicates to me that sexuality is something learned. I believe most people are born bisexual, some with a very strong attraction to one or the either. How can anyone learn to be gay? They really can't.

So in conclusion, in my opinion, everyone is born the way they are. Few are born entirely gay or straight, most somewhere in the middle. Some acknoweldge being in the middle, these are our self-identified bisexuals. others tend to be a little closer to one end of the scale, however...anyone in the middle can be taught that homosexuality is wrong and therefore be a self-identified heterosexual, when in reality they are bi or possibly even mostly gay.

And I already answerred that I think MOST gay people are born gay. There are extreme circumsyances which can cause a person, usually a woman, to consciously decide to give up men, but that is rare, and usually not long-term. Yet actually another support that everyone is bi-sexual, if she were really truly entirely straight, could she actually be with women and be happy? No

I know that I was born desiring women emotionally and physically. I don't think there is anything wrong with men, I just wouldn;t be happy being in a relationship with one. But I can understand women who are. I don;t think men are icky, or a*holes or anything negative, There's alot of really great guys in the world. And a lot of lousy ones. Same with women. People are people.

Answer 5

I do not know what the method that God uses to make people to be born gay, straight, bisexual, or transgendered. I don't know if it is genetic or chemical or both. But I do know the Kinsey study shows sexual orientation as a seven point continuous scale
0- Exclusively heterosexual
1- Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual
2- Predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual
3- Equally heterosexual and homosexual
4- Predominantly homosexual, but more than incidentally heterosexual
5- Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual
6- Exclusively homosexual

If you look at the scale you will find that the percentage of 100%homosexual is about 9 % but if you factor in the rest and exclude only those 100% straight you will find the percentage is 62%
So 62% of us are not 100% straight. I guess we are not a minority after all.

Answer 6

Call them what they are 'homosexuals and lesbians'. The word 'gay' was stolen by them in the 60's as a sort of code when homosexuality was illegal in most countries, and means 'good as you' ie g a y. The word gay means, and still does, happy and joyful. Whatever the percentage of homosexuals is to normal people it's too much! Homosexuality is an un-natural act condemned many times in the Bible and other religious books. I think people are influenced into becoming that way when they are very young and impressionable. man is meant to be heterosexual, otherwise how would we propagate. And don't forget that the spread of AIDS is hugely contributed to by homosexuality.

Answer 7

Being gay is not a disorder per the AMA, APA, and ACA. Last week the pentagon, hotbed of closed-minded bigotry, even acknowledged that being gay is not a dosorder.

Percentage-wise,the generally accepted number in any given population is 10% gay, with an unknown number of bi and transfolk.

Answer 8

complicated to assert what the real stats are. i imagine allot extra human beings are relaxing the idea of being bi, pretty lady. To be honest, i imagine the 'a million in 10' variety comes from a time even as a lot less homosexuals the position residing as married men and staying contained in the closet. I guess you if the stats were finished back, the averages will be critically diverse (larger).

Answer 9

Recent studys show that there has been an increase from 1 to 6% gay people.

Answer 10

10% gay, some random percent bisexual, the rest straight.

That can be justified in two ways. Anectodally, every group I've ever been in has been about 10% gay, which makes sense to me. Statistically, 5% of people voting in 2000 said they were gay to pollsters. Voters equal a huge sample, so that seems valid as to outgays. At least as many gays are closeted as are out -- so, again, 10%.

As for sexuality, inborn. The evidence becomes more overwhelming every year.

Two things in particular I'm going to point to. A number of major studies have been done of animals. All the species studied had homosexual behavior -- and all the species that had pair bonds at all had homosexual pair bonding TO THE EXCLUSION OF MATING WITH THE OPPOSITE SEX IN HEAT. Explain how that is even possible as a choice for animals? (the best book in this particular field is probably Dr. Bruce Bagemihl's book "Biological Exuberance" from St. Martin's Press -- from its bibliography you can find many others, and you can easily find other studies that look at the same phenomena.)

2nd -- the Fruit-fly study. The results for fruit-flies can't be denied (link below). People are trying to say that just because it applies to fruit-flies it doesn't have to to people. Alright, while I accept that the genetic mechanism is much more complex among humans -- why on earth would something like homosexuality be completely genetic in simple species and not genetic at all in the most complex species? It makes no sense, particularly given that no gay person I know EVER remembers being attracted to a female. Bisexuals are attracted to both. Gays are only attracted to same sex. So -- how is that a choice? Isn't it just the opposite of what straight people feel? An inborn automatic response. Period.

Regards,

Reynolds Jones
Schenectady, NY
http://www.rebuff.org
[e-mail]

PS Response to Guatt -- Gay is not a stolen word. It was originally used as an insult and was taken as an act of empowerment.

Regardless, let me answer the rest of what you say, and then go to the Bible issue.

Both gays and straights are normal. They exist in nature as well as in humanity (see Bruce Bagemihl, Ph.D. "Biological Exuberance," St. Martin's Press) so they are natural, and since homosexual is what they are, they are also psychologically normal.

HIV is primarily spread heterosexuality worldwide. You should get down on your knees and thank God that it came to America through the gay community. If you look at countries in Africa, from whence the virus came, and where it has always been spread primarily through Heterosexual contact, infection rates stand in some areas at a third of total population. Whole villages just disappear from AIDS over the course of a year. Had HIV entered the US through the heterosexual vector, the death toll at this time would stand at approximately 10 million in this country and the abattoir would just be getting warmed up. So have the common decency to be thankful that the disease came in through a minority community here, rather than condemning them for it.

As for the Bible (and by inference other bronze age religious texts)

While we have none of the autographs of the Bible, the early manuscripts we do have have and that are known to be genuine, by the most conservative estimates, have 200,000 differences between the wording in them, and while many are not meaningful, some completely change the doctrine of the church. (Ehrman, Bart, Ph.D.; Misquoting Jesus: The story behind who changed the Bible and Why; Harper Collins, 2006 -- p. 89). less conservative estimates range up to about 400,000 -- and there are programmers now endeavoring to write a program that will be able to count the exact number of variances.

And that's only the start of the difficulties for the Bible. If you only use the Textus Receptus (Received Text) as it is printed in modern Bibles then you are looking at enormous problems anyway -- in fact insurmountable ones. The World does not have corners (Isaiah 11:12), nor does it sit on pillars (I Samuel 2:8), nor water (Psalms 24:1-2). God did not establish a solid dome over the earth (that's what firmament literally means) and he does not have a palace on top of it from which angels can come and go up Jacob's ladder -- which might be reached by the tower of babel -- and where he keeps "treasuries" of hail and snow (Job 38: 22-23). For the sake of all that is decent, you can't even harmonize the 1st and 2nd chapters of Genesis with each other, say nothing of being able to defend the Biblical creation as scientifically factual. That's no surprise though, as the Bible tells us that beetles have four legs (Leviticus 11: 21-23) and that rabbits chew their cuds (Deuteronomy 14:7). It says that pi is 3, not 3.14 (I Kings 7:23 and 2 Chronicles 4:2) and that the mustard seed is the smallest seed in the world and grows into a tree [neither of which are true] (Matthew 13: 31-32). It is hardly a font of rational thought or scientific accuracy. Furthermore these errors only scratch the surface. Try harmonizing accounts in Joshua and the telling of the same tales in timeline in Judges sometime. If you can you are more proficient than any theologian I've ever met, and I've met a few.

Late bronze age men created the OT and early iron age ones the NT. It is not surprising therefore that God cannot lead Israel to defeat Iron chariots after promising he would (Judges 1:19), and it is not surprising that the flight of Israel from the god Chemosh, after the king of a city the Jews were beseiging and that God had promised them they would overthrow The King of the city offered his own son to Chemosh as a human sacrifice, resulting in Chemosh driving the Israelites away (2 Kings 3: 19-27) -- further it is not surprising that no punishment is mentioned -- the Israelites were still sacrificing their own children, as is evidenced in several places, but most graphically in Judges 11:30-39

The long and short of it is, the Bible is a mythic book, written by bronze and iron age men who were recording primarily oral legends in written form. In any realistic sense it is drivel. You can see, just in the passages I noted above from 2 Kings -- the last vestiges of polytheism fading away. Chemosh was supposed to get power from human sacrifice, just as Jehovah did -- and that power allowed him to turn the table against Israel, despite the fact that God was with Israel.

Read the verses, read the context -- to all the things I've suggested, and ask yourself if this is really the God of the Universe you are reading about -- or a tribal deity, which has now evolved into the one we worship. I think you will find biblegod sadly lacking -- something the liturgical churches have been saying for hundreds of years.

And if you want a chuckle, read the second, and theoretically final version of the ten commandments. They are in Exodus 34: 10-26. That is the covenant Yahweh actually made with Israel. No seething here.

Have a nice day.

Reyn