Misconstruers: Fear the (Box) Turtle

Hat tip to Box Turtle Bulletin for this one. Good call.

It's a classic. Alan Chambers, the President of Exodus International, a religious group that tells gay people they can become straight, is telling a Family Blah Blah writer some stuff:

Violence within gay relationships is often hidden, but not new. Alan Chambers, President of Exodus International, says he knew the problem would become public at some point.

“It’s something that we knew would come to light more as the issue of gay unions began to be on the radar screen of the American public.”

In fact, according to the National Violence against Women Survey, 39- percent of homosexuals report being raped, physically assaulted or stalked by their partners. Chambers says many gays grew up in a home where they were abused and that transfers into their relationships later in life. Domestic Violence Among Gay Couples Ascends

Wow. Thirty-nine percent. That's a bunch. This is another great reason not to let 'em marry each other.

You know. To protect them from themselves.

(Never mind that the "abused at home" meme is pure bull-oney.)

“I’m not saying that all gay people are violent. But in these relationships I believe that that has to be taken into consideration and is a factor for why so many of these relationships end in violence.”

Several states are considering legislation to dedicate money to domestic violence programs for gays. Andrea Lafferty with the Traditional Values Coalition thinks it’s another equality issue for them.

“It’s a bizarre twist on their attempt to legitimize their lifestyle. But nonetheless, this is another attempt to say, ‘Hey, we, the homosexual community, we are just like everybody else.’”

Chambers blames the violence on an extreme sense of unhappiness that often leads to addictive behaviors.

Well, ignorant people read this sort of thing and it sounds plausible, those diabolical perverts are probably sodomistically possessed in other ways besides their sexual ... choices.

But there is another explanation. Maybe men are more violent than women.

(As a tofu-loving Volvo driver, I'm beginning to feel so guilty for sounding sexist -- it just can't be true, everyone must be equal in every way.)

Box Turtle Bulletin says, go to the data. Find the survey report RIGHT HERE. It's nontrivial, 62 pages long, about a meg and a half, but if you're not on dial-up you oughta take a look at it.

Here, I'm not going to pretend to have discovered this. Box Turtle Bulletin will tell you:

Well, it’s true, sort of. Thirty-nine percent of women with a history of same-sex partnership report being raped, assaulted, or stalked by their partners. For men with a history of same-sex partnership, the figure is “only” 23%. For couples with a history of opposite-sex partnership [only], the figures are 21.7% for women, and 7.4% for men.

Yes ... that's what Alan Chambers said.

But the real question is who is doing the raping, assaulting, and stalking?

OK, so I'm dying to know. Who does it?

Well, we already know, because Alan Chambers told us, it's violent gays and lesbians taking advantage of liberal "gay marriage" laws.

For that answer, all you have to do is go to the very next page [p. 30]. In exhibit 9, you will see that —

Among women with a history of same-sex partnership:

• 30.4% were raped, assaulted or stalked by their husband/male partner
  
• 11.4% were raped, assaulted or stalked by their wife/female partner.

And among men with a history of same-sex partnership:

• 10.8% were raped, assaulted, or stalked by their wife/female partner.
  
• 15.4% were raped, assaulted, or stalked by their husband/male partner.

So here is what it all means. Many women with a history of same-sex partnership also have a history of opposite-sex partnership. Because of that, they are far more likely to report being raped, assaulted or stalked because it is the men in their lives who are doing the raping, assaulting or stalking. Not the women. Same-sex cohabiting women were nearly three times more likely to report being victimized by a male partner than a female partner.

And here is where the statistic gets really interesting: 20.5% of women in opposite sex relationships were raped, assaulted or stalked by their husband or male partner. That compares to 15.4% of men who were raped, assaulted, or stalked by their male partners. In other words, gay men are safer around their same-sex partners than straight women are around their husbands or opposite-sex partner.

Is this so hard to understand?

I'm going to try to make a table here. Hopefully it looks right in your browser:

                       Perpetrator
                    Male          Female
Victim    Male      15.4%         10.8% 
          Female    30.4%         11.4%   

To the rational person, this pattern says: men are more violent than women, especially in heterosexual relationships.

Look, it wasn't like you had to dig for this. The survey report itself says:

Thus, same-sex cohabiting women were nearly three times more likely to report being victimized by a male partner than by a female partner. Moreover, opposite-sex cohabiting women were nearly twice as likely to report being victimized by a male partner than were same-sex cohabiting women by a female partner (20.3 percent and 11.4 percent).

Somewhat different patterns were found for men. Like their female counterparts, same-sex cohabiting men were more likely to report being victimized by a male partner than by a female partner. Specifically, 15.4 percent of same-sex cohabiting men reported being raped, physically assaulted, and/or stalked by a male partner, but 10.8 percent reported such violence by a female partner. However, same-sex cohabiting men were nearly twice as likely to report being victimized by a male partner than were oppositesex cohabiting men by a female partner (15.4 percent and 7.7 percent). These findings suggest that intimate partner violence is perpetrated primarily by men, whether against male or female partners.

OK, that explains it: men are more violent than women. And they're more violent to women than to other men.

This idiot Chambers takes perfectly legitimate-looking data, a big government survey, and totally fabricates the interpretation of the results. Because he's talking to an audience of misanthropic illiterates with no sense of curiosity to motivate them to look anything up, they believe him. Plus, it fits their stereotype, and instead of thinking critically, the Family Blah Blah audience can just believe whatever somebody tells them they're suppose to believe.

Let's imagine they're right. Let's say gay-on-gay violence is a big problem, as Chambers asserts here.

Why would they lie about it?