Polls undercount support for marriage

SF Gate has an interesting article which estimates that poll results regarding support for marriage protection amendments are lower than actual opinion.

The article says that pre-election polling in several states that have already passed marriage protection amendments low balled estimates by as much as 19 percentage points. Why?

While the article cites a factor that I wholeheartedly agree with--a big factor is how the question is asked (how it's worded, what sort of tone and inflection the pollster uses, etc.)--I don't think that's the only reason, not by a long shot.

Gay rights supporters blame people's unwillingness to express an anti-gay opinion to a pollster for the discrepancy between polls and the ballot box, and McClusky agrees. But public opinion experts who study the phenomenon of "social desirability," which leads people to lie to pollsters on issues like church attendance or whether they would vote for an African American candidate, think other factors may be more significant.

Or as I more simply put it, "people know what 'the right answer' is." In other words, many people are social animals to the point that they feel compelled to follow the herd. They don't want to be perceived as out of step with the crowd. And since our "objective media" does such a good job of telling people what the politically correct opinion is, and how if you're not in agreement with it you're a Bible-thumping, provincial, uneducated, bigoted rube, then people are somewhat naturally going to give "the right answer" when a member of this same intelligentsia calls them and asks them if they support what is implied to be "equal rights for the peace-loving and oppressed gay community that is just seeking to get along and be recognized as 'just as good as everybody else'", or if they're one of those "uneducated, hate-mongering religious zealots who oppose fair treatment of gays?"

Of course, you probably won't see the question put that way in the pollster's call, but the "objective media" has already laid the groundwork for that implication with their incessant, nonstop statements to that effect in the daily newspapers and newscasts.

So, as I often say when many people are polled, "They know the right answer, and that's what they tell the pollster. But when they go into the privacy of the voting booth (where that elitist voice which ridicules them for their values isn't so strong), more often than not, they vote their conscience."

We'll see just how right I am in a little over a week...

Study shows abortion triples risk of depression

From the British Evening Standard:

Women who have abortions are three times as likely to suffer depression and other mental illness, it emerged yesterday.

Senior doctors claim new evidence shows a clear link between abortion and mental health problems in women who previously had no history of such illness.

This is part of what VoteYesForLife.com is talking about when they say women need to be protected from this kind of unnecessary risk.

Former Abortionist Calls for End to Abortion

VoteYesForLife.com has a new commercial, and it's an attention-getter.

It features features South Dakota certified OB-GYN Dr. Patti Giebink, who used to perform abortions at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux Falls. She now has a private practice where she cares for mothers and their babies, rather than killing their babies.

She says it's time to ban abortion on demand in South Dakota.

"I don't think it's necessary," Dr. Giebink says.

Watch the video here.

Anti-Amendment C Position "Absurd"

Below is an article comment on an Argus Leader article on Amendment C. It puts the bogus claims of homosexual activists and their apologists in the proper light, along with good context for the whole issue:

I moved from South Dakota to Michigan when I finished college and started my first job. Soon after, I became responsible for taking care of my sister, who has a disability. I was denied health insurance for her solely because she was my sister, rather than my lesbian partner. Consequently, I have followed Michigan's marriage amendment very closely, and would like to challenge the accuracy of Jon Hoadley's claim that the Michigan's marriage amendment had the unintended effect of removing health care for unmarried couples.

Michigan passed a marriage amendment. The Attorney General, Michael Cox, issued a non-binding ruling that the marriage amendment meant that public entities (eg state universities, etc) could not base benefits on the recognition of civil unions.

There's an important point here. Cox did not rule that state entities could not provide insurance to unmarried couples. Rather, Cox ruled that these entities could not provide insurance to unmarried couples while denying insurance to individuals too closely related to be legally married.

Cox's opinion was overturned by a later ruling. It is current policy for state universities to offer health insurance to gay and lesbian couples, while denying single mothers health care for family members that take care of their children.

This position...the position that Hoadley supports...is absurd. It insists that there is nothing uniquely special about the capability of a woman and a man to bear a child, while simultaneously insisting that there is something special about sexual relationships in general.

Posted by:sj

Seeing the Light

Looks like Mr. Blanchard at South Dakota Politics has changed his mind on Amendment C and now supports it, due to the latest display of judicial activism in New Jersey.

Hopefully more folks will wake up to the fact that homosexual activists and their "useful idiots" in the judiciary are serious about gutting marriage.

While we must always use caution when making changes to a constitution, we need Amendment C in South Dakota, and the inclusion of the marriage protection amendment isn't done lightly.