This homosexual marriage poll on the AFA
This homosexual marriage poll on the AFA site seems to be backfiring on them. The AFA is strongly against legalizing marriage for gay/lesbian couples.
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Reader comments
breeDec 23, 2003 at 2:58PM
There's been a campaign to subvert the poll. I have no idea how widespread it is, but I know a gay friend of mine contacted me to vote for gay marriage, and say I live in California (we both live in Vancouver, British Columbia). I doubt he's the only one lying about his origins and voting in the poll to skew the results.
RichardDec 23, 2003 at 2:58PM
I'm not saying this is the case, but I have seen the link to this poll on several sites that seem to be pro-"homosexual marriage" with some commenting on trying to vote more than once. In my opinion, they posted the poll and some non-AFA readers caught wind of it. These could be legit votes, I am just posting one theory.
dowingbaDec 23, 2003 at 3:02PM
Most people have more than one email address...also couldn't one just vote infinite times using Mailinator addresses (if they really felt so strongly about some such useless poll)?
MathewDec 23, 2003 at 3:38PM
i wouldn't say the poll is so useless... the AFA was going to present this poll to congress to show how many people were against gay marriage. now that the votes are swinging the other way, i'm pretty sure they're going to crap the results.
jkottkeDec 23, 2003 at 3:45PM
It will be interesting to see if they scrap the results. They would certainly be justified in doing so because of the way they ran the poll (no random ordering of the list, can view the results before you vote, and their method of tracking one vote per person is fairly useless), but they'll probably catch a lot of flack for it.
MathewDec 23, 2003 at 4:28PM
they had it set up so that you had to vote in order to see the results, but that was several days ago. they only recently changed it.
Michael BuffingtonDec 23, 2003 at 7:51PM
Just want to point it that it would take me about 20 minutes to whip up a script that could prefill the form with all manner of "legit" looking data and push the results any way I like (robots are just so darn efficient, and cute!). Despite any opinion I have about the subject matter, I think it's funny that any organization might think an online poll accurate (despite any measures of tracking "real" votes), let alone that they think Congress will care about the results.
Geof F. MorrisDec 23, 2003 at 8:16PM
Anything that makes Don Wildmon look even sillier than he does just standing there is cool with me. [Knowing that my old church used to support the clown made it hard to put a $20 in the collection plate on Sundays.]
shaunDec 24, 2003 at 12:06AM
If you look at the numbers of votes, about 350,000 for and 200,000 against right now, there's obviously some kind of campaign--I can't imagine that many people visit the site normally, especially not that many willing to take the time to fill out that form just to vote in a stupid poll.
Still great to see it backfire like that though. Haha.
sixtoeDec 24, 2003 at 11:27AM
What did they expect with a Web-based poll? It's more likely they were hoping to collect half a million e-mail addresses--in which case the poll is a success.
SaylesDec 25, 2003 at 2:30PM
It won't accept Mailinator addresses I notice, but you can easily convert one into a Jetable http://jetable.com/ address and it will accept that.
Kei-Won-TiaDec 26, 2003 at 6:59AM
There are radicals on both sides of this argument, so there's no reason to think that people against homosexual marriages aren't trying to cheat, and sway the votes, as well. Something a little more logical is that both sides are doing it, and the homosexual side has more people... which would make the poll accurate, regardless of cheating.
zedDec 30, 2003 at 9:07PM
I am sure that people on both sides are going to attempt skewing the poll. But, you put a marriage poll on some Christian family website and what do you expect?
doug mcadieJan 04, 2004 at 6:00PM
The poll was biased AGAINST gay marriage before a single vote was cast. 1) There are two pro-gay choices, one for marriage and one for civil union, thereby diluting the pro-gay vote. 2) The poll is on the AFA website whose members are overwhelmingly anti-gay marriage. How many gay members do you think the AFA has? It isn't representative of the population at large. If pro-gay marriage people discovered the poll, that makes it more representative than it would have been without. Legitimate polls have randomly chosen participants, and offering it only to AFA members was a decision made hoping to skew the results that backfired.
ReneeJan 22, 2004 at 1:09PM
I have a few friends that are gay. I may not agree with they way the choose to live, but it's not their fault. If you were born to be gay there is no way you can fight those feeling. Just because someone is different from you doesn't mean that you should discriminate them. That just like saying you don't like Mexicans because they aren't like you. But they are everyone is equal. We all have different backgrounds and races, but does that make them non-people? We all have more in common then you think. Just there are people that can't look beyond that and support other peoples decisions. You don't have to agree but just support the fact that people's preferences aren't all the same. You should agree with making and individual happy. If that means supporting something you don't believe just to make a individual happy then so be it. I was intimidated by homosexuals. But then I dug deeper and saw that they could be happy being what they are. Just like everyone else is happy being what they are. So why are we so focused on homosexuals. I believe you should focus on bigger issues rather than a class of people. It demeaning and they should be left alone just like any other race of an individual. Targeting races just to make you feel better is wrong and it should be changed.
MyriamFeb 08, 2004 at 12:35AM
I think that if you want to marry someone that you love should be able to. The ignorant people that are afraid and don't understand gays are the ones that got to say something. Isn't this a free country why does religion justify everything not everybody believes in the same God. I think that this is like blacks fighting for equal rights. Watch how the north would be the first to make gay marriages legal. Anyways why should we even listen to what the president says did he listen to us when we did want to go to war against Iraq and all these other places. Thank you for reading!
EirlielFeb 28, 2004 at 8:51PM
Woohoo!, go pro gay marriage people!
This thread is closed to new comments. Thanks to everyone who responded.