Reflections, Reflections

In case you haven't seen them (click on link for full post), they are listed here; I won't have time to comment now.

- Transgendered bathrooms again

- I knew that the musical Rent had homosexual characters, but I assumed that they were cleaned up Will and Grace homosexuals--the kind that really do exist--but that seem to be more common in television and movies than in real life. (This assumes, of course, that living in the San Francisco Bay Area qualifies as "real life.")

- The Number of Gay Marriages

Dale Carpenter, who blogs over at Volokh Conspiracy primarily about gay marriage and related issues (he's in favor of gay marriage), points to a recent study done by one of the anti-gay marriage groups that shows that only a tiny fraction of homosexuals are taking advantage of new laws allowing gay marriage--something like 2% to 6% of homosexuals--who in turn, are only about 2% of the population:

The report derives these numbers by comparing the total number of same-sex marriages in a jurisdiction (based on government reports) to an estimate of the total number of adult homosexuals in the jurisdiction (based on survey data for the jurisdiction, if available, or a general estimate if not). The first number is precise; the second number is necessarily a rough estimate. I won't address here the accuracy of the data; I'll assume that the numbers for same-sex marriages are correct. While we could quibble over the estimates of gays in a given jurisdiction, the assumptions used seem fair. The report itself has a welcome "just the facts, ma'am" tone.

One of the criticisms of recognizing gay marriage was the claim (which seems to have been borne out) that relatively few gay people are interested in the sort of long-term committment that marriage entails. Now, even if true, this wouldn't be an argument against gay marriage. But it does suggest that the claim that gay people are just like everyone else, except for their sexual orientation, isn't really accurate.

There are a number of data points that show that homosexuals are, on average, different from straight people.