That night on the same Seven Network, the current affairs show Today Tonight (which immediately precedes Home and Away), had a segment featuring this issue. Of course it was just a cheap promotional, not an objective news item. It had on a well-known psychologist who assured us that a full ten percent of young people are homosexual.
I immediately emailed this man, telling him this was of course a myth perpetrated by the homosexual lobby, and that I was quite happy to send him the documentation on this. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he never got back to me. Evidently he is quite happy to peddle this line. Far too many people it seems will not let the evidence stand in the way of pushing an ideological agenda.
Since many folk appear to be uninterested in the facts, I share them here for those who are. The truth is, the ten per cent claim is a falsehood. Let me offer a sampling of the evidence. An issue of Newsweek admitted that the 10 per cent figure which sexologist Alfred Kinsey used was highly inflated: "Activists seized on the double digits to strengthen their political message. . . . Policymakers and the press adopted the estimate - despite protests from skeptical conservatives - citing it time and time again. But new evidence suggests that ideology, not sound science, has perpetuated a 1-in-ten myth."
Homosexual activists have confirmed this to be a case of deliberate deception: "Based on their personal experience, most straights probably would put the gay population at 1% or 2% of the general population. Yet . . . when straights are asked by pollsters for a formal estimate, the figure played back most often is the '10% gay' statistic which our propagandists have been drilling into their heads for years."
What is the evidence? The 10 per cent figure is actually about eight to ten times too high. Let's look at Kinsey's findings, for example. An article in The American Journal of Psychiatry claims that Kinsey's work suffered from "severe methodological limitations" and that his sample group - male prisoners and sex offenders included - was "far from representative". The authors of the article say that the actual figure should be about 1.1 per cent.
Furthermore, Kinsey never actually said that 10 per cent of the population is homosexual. He claimed that 4 per cent of white males were exclusively homosexual throughout their lives after adolescence, and that 10 per cent were "more or less" exclusively gay for parts of their lives.
Finally, while most people seem to know about Kinsey's original study, very few know about a more recent Kinsey Institute study conducted in 1970 and released in 1989. This study found the number of homosexual males to be only 1.4 per cent. It also found that lesbians are far fewer than male homosexuals.
Some years ago the Wall Street Journal presented a summary of some of the recent studies on the extent of homosexuality. All the findings present similar low figures. In the United States a 1989 University of Chicago study found that only 1.2 per cent of both male and female adults reported homosexual activity. And a 1993 survey found only 1.1 per cent of men who claimed to be exclusively homosexual. Furthermore:
• In France a 1992 government study of over 20,000 adults found that 1.4 per cent of men and 0.4 per cent of women had had homosexual intercourse in the five years preceding the survey.
• In Britain a 1991 nationwide survey of 19,000 adults found that 1.4 per cent of men aged 16 to 59 had homosexual contact in the past five years.
• In Canada a nationwide survey of 6,000 first-year college students found that 1 per cent were homosexual and 1 per cent were bisexual.
• In Norway a 1987 nationwide poll found that 0.9 per cent of males and 0.9 per cent of females had homosexual experiences within the past three years.
• Finally, a 1989 study in Denmark found less than 1 per cent of males aged 18-59 were exclusively homosexual.
More recent American studies have demonstrated similar figures. A 1993 study of the sexual behaviour of men based on the National Survey of Men found that "2 percent of sexually active men aged twenty to thirty-nine . . . had had any same-gender sexual activity during the last ten years. Approximately 1 percent of the men (1.3 percent among whites and 0.2 percent among blacks) reported having had exclusively homosexual activity."
A year later the most scientifically rigorous study to date of American sexual practices was released. A condensed version of the study, Sex in America, reported that there were "few homosexuals " in its survey, and the nationwide incidence of male homosexuality was only 2.8 per cent, while lesbianism was just 1.4 per cent.
And a major study released in 2000 in Demography found more of the same. Based on three large sets of data (the General Social Survey, the National Health and Social Life Survey, and the U.S. Census), it found that the number of exclusive male homosexuals in the general population was just 2.5 percent, and the number of exclusive lesbians just 1.4 percent.
Recent Canadian research has found similar sorts of figures. The 2003 Canadian Community Health Survey, a comprehensive study of 135,000 Canadians on a wide range of health issues, was released mid-June 2004 by Statistics Canada. It found that among Canadians between 18 and 59 years old, about 1.0 per cent consider themselves homosexual; another 0.7 per cent said they were bisexual.
If the homosexual lobby is willing to use faulty statistics to support its cause, just how reliable is it in other areas? As one homosexual warned: "If you say a number that you can't prove, there's always the chance that by disproving one part of your argument, your opponents weaken you overall. I think that's dangerous."
While it is understandable that a movement would want to overestimate its importance and influence, it is reprehensible that such large portions of the media parrot these figures, without doing their homework first.
But the truth is, those who have sought to do the figures in Australia have come out with quite low figures. A recent study by Monash University entitled "How Gay is Australia?" based on 2001 Census figures found very low numbers indeed. It found that only 37,774 persons are in same sex couples; persons in same sex couples are only 0.2 per cent of the total population; and persons in same sex couples are only 0.47 per cent of all persons in couples.
A 2008 Victorian government report found similar numbers. According to The State of Victoria's Young People, 97.9 per cent of Victorians aged between 12 and 24 regarded themselves as heterosexual; 1.5 per cent identified as bisexual; and 0.6 per cent identified as homosexual.
And a recent study of sexuality in Australia has confirmed that the ten per cent figure is greatly overblown. In a study of nearly 20,000 Australians, La Trobe University researchers found that 97.4 per cent of Australians said their sexual identity was heterosexual. A mere 1.6 said it was homosexual, and a paltry 0.9 per cent said it was bisexual. So much for the 10 per cent myth.
The same study found that those who had an exclusively same-sex sexual attraction amounted to 0.6 per cent for men and 0.2 per cent for women. And those who had sexual experience exclusively with the same-sex came to 0.6 per cent for men and 0.1 per cent for women.
In a book-length retelling of the study, two of the authors involved in the original research go on to say, "When questions about homosexuality have been asked in rigorous scientific sexual behaviour surveys in the United Kingdom and the United States, results similar to those in Australia have been found".
In sum, the evidence is in. The ten per cent figure has always been a big lie. But homosexual propagandists know that if you tell a lie often enough and loud enough, people will start to believe it. People deserve to know the truth about this. If the mainstream media will not run with the facts then I will.