From: Bob Jacobson Gottschalk, Kurt. (1993 May, 31). The 1 percent solution. Anti- gay forces look for safety in low numbers. _In These Times_ pp. 6-7 (Excerpts). As organizers and activists across the country prepared for the Lesbian, Gay and Bi March on Washington last month, a four-page press release from a research group began appearing over fax lines in the newsrooms across the country. A new study, the release announced, had found that only 1 percent of the adult male population in this country is gay and religious right forces hoping to take the wind out of the march's sails. The study, entitled the "1991 National Survey of Men," was published in March/April 1993 issue of Family Planning Perspectives. Conducted by researchers from the Battelle Human Affairs Research Center in Seattle, the study surveyed 4,751 men concerning patterns of sexual behavior. Participants were asked, among a host of other questions, if they engaged "exclusively" in same-sex activity, to which only 1 percent replied in the affirmative. If the figure is correct, there are some 2.6 million gay men in the United States. They certainly seem to get around: CNN estimates that 1.7 million people showed up in Washington for the gay-rights march. (Organizers estimated that at least 1 million people participated; the "official" park police count of 300,000 includes only the number of people in the Capitol Mall not the entire parade route--at any given time.) Now, in the wake of the March's success, anti-gay forces are using the study in an effort to convince Congress that the gay population isn't actually as large and powerful as it claims. ... "[The study] made it easier for us. We're on a more even playing field," Kelly Mullins, director of the media relations of the D.C.-based Traditional Values Coalition, told _In These Times_. "Before, we had to fight this myth that there's 10 percent [gays in the total population]." Previous studies have varied greatly in counting the gay population. The landmark Kinsey study in 1948 came up with commonly cited 10 percent figure; other studies asking about behavior, desire and self-definition have found that as many as 80 percent of Americans report some level of homosexual inclination. The Battelle study is not the first find less than 10 percent, but its findings have been wildly misinterpreted, and its methodology has received considerable criticism. The surveys were conducted door to door, largely, by female interviewers. Thirty percent of those polled refused to participate, and those that did were asked for their name and Social Security Number and employer before being asked to reveal intimate details about their sexual behavior. The 1 percent "exclusively homosexual" figure also effectively rules out bisexual men as well as men who were involved with women before coming out. Clearly, some men are going to be inclined to withhold some aspects of their sexuality from a strange woman who has just asked for his employer's name. But the questionable methodology has not been referred to in many of the media reports. ... Hidden within the answers to other questions are some telling, if convoluted, numbers: 3 percent reported performing or receiving oral sex with another man; of the 20 percent who reported engaging in anal sex, one-fourth (or 5 percent of the total sample) reported male partners; slightly more than 2 percent reported any same-gender activity." In the commentary to the study, researchers admit that "some respondents may underreport their sexual behavior..., because of embarrassment or social unacceptability." The study was not, in fact, even designed to count gay men. "[Media reports are] missing the point," Korsy Taufer, one of the senior researchers for the study, told the _Washington Blade_. "[The study[ was specifically done to look at risky behavior among heterosexuals. If we wanted to count gays, we would have done a totally different study," she said. One that probably would have been closer to the commonly accepted 10 percent mark--and one that Henry J. D'Souza School of Social Work University of Nebraska at Omaha 60th and Dodge Omaha, NE 68182 Phone (402)-554-2843 email: dsouza@cwis.unomaha.edu