The tolerant Catholic Church
- Thread starter Danthus
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I've amended your question to what you intended
Here is another poll where the question asked was pretty similar
Do you support or oppose the Government's proposal to legalise same-sex marriage?
Which I'm sure you will agree is almost exactly what you asked for and so can not possibly have any Catholic bias as you yourself wrote it ?
Agreed ?
http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/Premier_Gay_Marriage_data_tables_Nov11.pdf
Sorry, 83% are opposed to it...
Petard, hoisted
Did you even look at that poll to see whom it was polling? Sample bias as a starting position.
Did you look at Q2? Overtly negative propostion.
Did you look at the first question? Have a look at Q3 too. So lets throw in some politcal bias too.
You honestly agree that the Comres poll I was commenting on above is as valid as any other poll?
A quick glance shows the following issues:
Specifically polling a subset of the population already known to be generally opposed to gay marriage.
Politicising the issue with reference to a political leader and political party.
Overtly negative portrayal of the subject being questioned.
From an academic point of view that poll is absolutely terrible. If you think otherwise then please feel free to explain why I should ignore those three very obvious problems with it.
It doesn't matter, anyway. A question of whether or not certain minorities should have their rights should never be put to a referendum. It's like holding a referendum on whether or not to implement the Civil Liberties Act, or on universal suffrage.
The majority do not get to dictate what rights minorities are or are not entitled to.
The majority do not get to dictate what rights minorities are or are not entitled to.
Absolutely 100% spot on.
Soldato
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As i have said previously the rights are in place already with civil partnerships.
Putting words into people's mouths is pretty childish don't you think ? I'm not sure I would bother replying either. It's not like he hasn't answered that point several times already
That depends on if you think it is a human right to co-opt a ceremony from a group that specfically prohibits it.
Nobody is preventing gays from having the same legal rights as the majority do they, so what is the problem with their human rights ?
It's not a human right to pretend something means the same thing as another thing.
I have only posted and commented on one poll, so I assume that is what you are referring to.
So a random sample of the population is a subset of the population known to be opposed how?
This was not a Cpanel poll.
Which questions mention a political party or political leader?
In what way are the questions overtly negative to the subject?
http://www.comres.co.uk/polls/Marriage_Tables_March_2012.pdf
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Oh really ?
Same-sex couples should be allowed to legally marry 43%
Same-sex couples should be allowed to form civil partnerships, but not marry 34%
Same-sex couples should not have any kind of legal recognition 15%
Not sure 7%
So I make that 43% in favour, and 49% not in favour,
as the civil voters are essentially the same as the anti legal voters. That missing 15% isn't exactly going to be in favour of gay marriage is it !
Splitting an anti group into two parts and then presenting that as a victory for the remaining third is pointless, that's like saying 43 are in favour of racial marriage, 34 in favour of a black only ceremony and the other 15 think blacks should be deported !
Are you still in favour of this clearly flawed poll now I've shown that it doesn't remotely say what you think it says ?
It's getting tiresome pointing out that the church doesn't own marriage, but I guess until you stop we'll have to keep on.
Seems a bit pointless to be having such an argument over that poll...
Disregarding whether or not it is valid (I have no experience of statistics collection), it is just one poll.
A poll of polls might show a better result perhaps? How many polls are in overall support of gay marriage, vs. how many are against? From the number of poll results so far posted in this thread, it would seem that the general populace is for gay marriage.
As i said though, i am not experienced with the creation or conduct of questionnaires. It would seem only one person in this thread is.
(edit to point out i am not inferring that Fran is the one experienced in questionnaires)
Disregarding whether or not it is valid (I have no experience of statistics collection), it is just one poll.
A poll of polls might show a better result perhaps? How many polls are in overall support of gay marriage, vs. how many are against? From the number of poll results so far posted in this thread, it would seem that the general populace is for gay marriage.
As i said though, i am not experienced with the creation or conduct of questionnaires. It would seem only one person in this thread is.
(edit to point out i am not inferring that Fran is the one experienced in questionnaires)
Hey hey hey, marriage was around before Christianity a we have already agreed. It was taken over by the church already, there is no reason another group cannot take on the institution. Not to mention the fact (again) that a Catholic marriage in the UK holds no legal status whatsoever, and that State marriage is already an established institution, which is the one under discussion.Fran said:
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It seems I have my wires crossed, talking about a different poll entirely, the one that only asked Christians, distinctly politicised the question and was overtly negative.
The ComRes poll you have linked to is still flawed, but not to the same degree. In brief my criticisms of that would be:
1. First page questions are scene setting, getting your audience to think about marriage in a certain way. Asking to agree with a certain position (as you yourself argued in the Scottish Independance thread) automatically biases the answer. So marriage is important, best fit for children is mother and father is already setting up a rather biased view of what marriage should be.
2.Second page question point out that gays already have civil partnerships. So they final question on that page is again asking to agree after already setting up that yes, marriage is good, yes kids are better with a mother and father and yes, gays already have recognition via civil partnership, so you agree that we should keep marriage as a man and a woman?
It seems to be a selection of questions designed to illicit a certain response.
Thankfully no one is doing that as the Catholic Church does not own marriage. Nor does Christianity. Your starting position is flawed.
Exactly the point which has been ignored many times.
The current religion's have tried to claim these concepts which pre-date the religion in question - rightly people are not accepting it.
Just call it "Christian marriage" & "Marriage" - problem solved, but I don't think discriminatory organisations should be given a tax free status.
Remove the tax free status until they change & you will see religions change faster then ever before - you will have two catholic gay women priests getting married by the end of the year.
Soldato
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In our culture (not that of ancient Sumeria or anywhere else) then historically what we know as marriage has been a Christian event. You only need to look at our history to see how this has affected us.
hi most people in the uk class themselves as christian so there is no problem here everyone celebrates xmas pretty much
we are a christian country get over it
if anyone doesnt like that they are welcome to leave
I have said that some of the criticisms made do require some consideration...I don't actually sit in the majority camp of that particular poll as you know, I posted it simply because it was apparent that it was relevant to the discussion we are having....as with any poll there will be a certain amount of hoohaa over the types and construction of the questions or how illustrative the results are...generally depending on whether you support it or not.
I think they are pretty straight forward though, but I am not that attached to it's importance in the debate at large to exert large amounts of effort in an attempt to defend it, especially as it doesn't actually support my position...
The other poll was intended to be asked only of Christians and so that inherent bias must be considered and the results judged only within the context of the sample criteria and not adjudged as being indicative or illustrative of the population at large.
In our current culture then what we know as marriage is not a Christian event. Most marriages have no religious element in them at all. The Church controlling marriage is really just a blip in terms of marriage in the UK.
Considering the history and culture of the UK the Catholic Church certainly doesn't own marriage here. They cannot even perform a legal marriage without the aid of a registrar.
I am not saying that you do support the poll result, I am however suprised, especially after your stance on the polls regarding Scottish Independance, that you cannot see the rather evident bias in that poll. I only had a few minutes to look at it and could see the (perhaps deliberately) flawed construction.
From a purely academic point of view that is a bad poll regardless of what question it was asking.
I think they are pretty straight forward though, but I am not that attached to it's importance in the debate at large to exert large amounts of effort in an attempt to defend it, especially as it doesn't actually support my position...
I am suprised you would defend it at all, especially as it is flawed from an academic point of view.
Maybe you should be telling Fran that then as he seems to be trying to use it as being indicative. My own opinion is that even if 90% of the general public were against gay marriage I would still think we should do it. Doing what is right is more important than doing what is popular.
I am starting to come to the opinion though that very few of us actually want a reasoned debate as most of the replies seem to be to the more easily argued against posts rather than the more nuanced considered posts.