Naturally all the gays are terribly concerned. "What's wrong with us?" they're asking. And the homophobes have a fresh new round of ammunition. Everyone agrees it's a "wake-up call." It's clear: when you talk to a homo, when you drive near a homo, when you work with a homo, it's seven times more likely he's tripping or blotto or tweaked.
The fact that this study was put out by the Lesbian & Gay Foundation, an allegedly pro-gay group, doesn't make it any easier to say that it's just flat-out wrong.
The report questioned gays who attended various pride events and compared them with the regular, presumedly heterosexual population. Red flags should go flying when you check out page 10 and notice the ages of the people polled.
The gay group has twice as many people in the 16-24, 25-29, and 30-34 age groups as the presumedly straight group. The largest gay subsection is 16-24, making up 29% of respondents. With the straight group, the largest subsection is aged 60+, making up 22%.
Gosh, then, let's examine which group abuses more drugs. Whaddaya know -- gay kids smoke more weed than GRANDMA. Homosexual youth use cocaine a lot more than your dad.
These researchers aren't stupid, though. They note that the age discrepancies are problematic. On page 11 they say that the gay people surveyed are much younger than the general population, and admit that "Care ... needs to be taken when making comparisons [with] the population of England as whole."
On page 12 they repeat that "Making comparisons between the drug use reported [by the gays] and that reported by the general population is not straightforward because the [gay] sample is younger by comparison."
Uh, and THEN THEY COMPARE THEM.
So is it possible to learn anything from all this work? I think we can agree on two conclusions:
- Anonymous kids at pride parades are more likely to admit drug use than people who receive drug surveys at home in the mail.
- Though with friends like these, we could all probably use a Xanax.
