Any study can skew numbers. It all depends on where you have your control group. Neil's Canadian study takes into account only 135,000 Canadians aged 12 and older. The primary focus of the study is quality of health care. Then they only ask or list those ages 18-59 if they consider themselves homosexual. That makes the study group even smaller. They cut out any teenager or senior citizen who might also be gay. It also doesn't give us the total of how many of the original 135,000 are left when you cut out the certain age groups. The problem with this study is that it is supposed to study health care quality but also double dips into sexual identity. Then it doesn't use its entire study group to determine how many folks identify themselves as homo or bi-sexuals. You get 1.9% Male and 1.6% Female saying they identify themselves as either homosexual or bisexual. How many men were polled? How many woman were polled? Why were certain age groups not included?

There are too many questions needed answered for me to just except this one health care poll that doubles as a way to find out the gay population. Maybe the area I live in leans the opposite direction where there is more homosexual and bisexual folks living here than in other areas of the country. Maybe, as I said in earlier posts, a good many folks are homosexual or bisexual but they would not identify themselves as being so.

Denial is not just a river in Egypt.

Noah - I understand what you mean about not being able to write a same-sex romance in one of your plays when you can write a man/woman romance. Somehow, gay sex is taboo or dirty, no matter how the gay relationship is presented. I find that, even tho I have been out for ALL of my life, it can still be uncomfortable when I'm with my parents watching a movie that has gay references or strong undertones, etc... I hate that this is so, and until society in general gets more exposed to gay life and culture it will somehow remain "taboo". Unfortunately, plays for kids are not venue for this, tho I would suggest that, instead of romance, you could have themes of strong friendship. (Nothing suggestive at all - but that a character meets his/her best friend type of a thing.)

I like the Phoebe quote, and will repeat it here: "Sometimes men love women, and sometimes men love men.  Then there are bisexuals, but some think they're just kidding themselves"

As to the real numbers: I think 10% is a good working number. I do not think it is an accurate number. The number of out and honest homosexuals is somewhere between 6 - 10%. Add to it all the closet cases and dishonest people, and the number is larger than 10%. I have had more so-called "straight" men make passes at me (and yes, I realize they were looking for what they thought was quick, easy sex). I somehow doubt that we will know what the true numbers are. Even tho society has come a long way in acceptance in the last 20 years, there's a long way to go. There is alot of fear that surrounds homosexuals - that if they are honest about themselves, they will be beaten or killed, fired from their jobs, hated, etc... I have been fired from jobs because I'm gay. I have been discriminated against in day-to-day life. I've known people who have been beaten up for being gay. When I was in my 20's, many of my gay friends expressed their surprise that I 1) had straight male friends and 2) was out to my straight male friends. This is because they felt that straight men would not accept them.

I urge everyone to accept anyone you know who is gay. You don't have to approve of certain parts of their life - - acceptance is not approval. But, if you like the person, accept them for who they are. Even if you can't stand that person, accept them. (We can't like everyone, but hating someone just because they are who they are seems stupid.)

I also want to urge people to do some reading. Read books by gay authors, just to see what another point of view is like. I recommend "Openly Bob" and "Way To Go, Smith!" by Bob Smith. He is a gay comedian, and very funny. The books are both biography and commentary. I feel that he is not too radical, and that everyone can find something to relate to. Check your local used bookstore for the "Nancy Clue" books by Mabel Maney - "The Case Of The Not-So-Nice Nurse", "The Case Of The Good-For-Nothing Girlfriend", and "A Ghost In The Closet". These are lesbian/gay versions of Nancy Drew & Cherry Ames, and the books are a lot of fun. It's a big, gay world in these books - but it's all toungue-in-cheek. Finally, check out "Venus Envy" by Rita Mae Brown. It's about a woman who comes out as a lesbian when she thinks she is dying. She was misdiagnosed tho, after writing letters to her loved ones saying exactly what she thinks. All hell breaks loose. It's an excellent book, and shows some of the "fear of coming out" that I was talking about earlier.

On the Hulk comic scene - - it came across that the guys were more aggressive than anything else. Obviously they have to be gay if they are actively preying on other men in that way, but it also came across as they wanted the feeling of power. Rape is usually about having power over the victim. Calling Bruce "sweetie" seemed more taunting than anything else. The only offense I took from this is "how dare anyone presume to do that to another person". (I didn't take it to be anti-gay at all... this was just the situation Bruce found himself in.)

Well, I think I'm done with my soapbox. Sorry if I was long-winded, and I hope I was not offensive at all. I just want people to see another point of view (even if they do not agree), and I certainly understand other points of view expressed in this thread.

Kor -- I gotta throw in my two cents and agree.  There are far more of us out there than any study is going to show.  (Of course, I live in Wash, DC, where many governmental staffers are pink, closeted elephants.)

We've come a long way since Stonewall, but we still have a long way to go.

Emotional evidence – derived from one’s subjective feelings; no matter hard you want something to be true does not mean that it is true.

To get back to the subject of Jim Shooter's views on homosexuality in comics, we should remember that the incident in question did happen about a quarter century ago.  Saying "that's the way things were back then" shouldn't be a free pass but it is a bit unfair to judge something from 1980 or so by the standards of 2007, like it would be somewhat unfair to judge something from 1950 by the standards of 1975.  Just as we can't really know what Shooter's views on homosexuality were back then, we can't know what they are or if they've changed today.

Mike