About Language

[la_vie_noire]

Sociological Images: Survey Finds Different Levels of Acceptance for “Gays” Versus “Homosexuals”

[...] They asked 500 respondents how they felt about permitting “homosexuals” to serve in the military; then they asked a different 500 how they felt about “gays/lesbians” serving in the military. It turns out, people like gays and lesbians more than they like homosexuals:

(Graphic on SI post.)

Comments

[vangirl]

My first thought was "that's kinda crazy" but it does make sense, actually. Homosexual is a much colder (more frightening? less human?) word than gay or lesbian.

[merlinpendragon]

All that I get from these survey results is that a large portion of the 1000 people surveyed for this don't have an adequate enough vocabulary to know that gays/lesbians ARE homosexuals. If the general populations had the vocabulary to know that one truth, then the results of those "two" polls should have been the same, within the range of the margin of error they would allow for.