Many of you may remember the online poll that the American Family Association – a staunch anti-homosexual group – ran earlier this year. The poll was a thinly-veiled attempt to gather data skewed to show that American’s were against gay marriage. AFA’s plan was to only allow AFA members to vote in the poll; this would ensure the results of the poll would be against gay marriage.
However, the existence of this poll got out to the general internet, and soon a very broad range of individuals were voting on the poll. Instead of AFA’s tightly controlled group of homophobes, the much more open-minded internet community were able to vote. Results: votes supporting gay marriage: 60%. Votes supporting same-sex civil unions: 7%. Votes against gay marriage or unions tallied a paltry 32% of the votes.
In an interesting twist, the AFA decided not to use these votes. To quote the Wired article: “But, clearly, the AFA had hoped Congress would take the numbers it planned to produce as exactly that kind of evidence.”
I think it is poetic justice. And the internet is a beautiful thing. I am very heartened to see there are a large number of open-minded indvidiuals in the world.