Gay vs.

Straight
I was assigned to the topic of sexual orientation. My group was
assigned to have people take a survey on the straight person. So one night I
went outside of Walmart and asked people to fill out the survey honestly. I
think that they didnt want to seem hateful towards homosexuals. But at the
same time I can also say that there were plenty of people who probably
didnt really read anything and just filled out the survey as fast as they could
so they could so they could get back to their busy schedule and enjoy their
shopping experience at Walmart.

I also feel like if someone in real life was running for senator and was
gay that more people would speak out against it. They would definitely give
their opinion and wouldnt be ok with having a gay senator. They just tone
the hate down because it isnt going to affect them in the real world. So they
figure its ok to lie a little to make them look like a more understanding and
open minded person.

The question I asked everyone was Does marital status influence your
answers? Surprisingly most people said no. The hypothesis my group had
originally came up with was The majority of people will vote for the straight
person. The older generation will vote for the straight person, while the

younger generation will be more liberal and will be ok with the gay or at least
try and be nice about it. But our hypothesis was very wrong. As stated
before most of the people said they didnt care what the persons marital
status was. Not only did young people say it didnt matter but the majority of
old people interviewed didnt mind it either. None of them were hostile and
super rude about it. That was nice.

Out of all of the Latter-Day Saints I interviewed four males and seven
females. Five were under the age of 21, two were 21-30, two were 31-40, and
two were 41-50. So I had a pretty diverse age pool for the Latter-Day Saints;
this didnt affect the answers in the way I expected them too. They were all
pretty similar in their answers. Which you will see in the results coming up. I
expected to receive the most surveys back from Latter-day Saint members.
So when I didnt get one from this church I was shocked.

When asked He has a sufficient education to be a U.S senator from

Utah. Three people strongly agreed, seven agreed, and one person was
neutral. Question two said He has sufficient work experience to be a U.S
Senator from Utah. two people strongly agreed, eight agreed, and one
disagreed. The third question asked if they thought that he demonstrated
strong leadership skills. Four strongly agreed, five agreed, and two were
neutral. Question four asked if he had enough life experiences that would

help him understand average Utahan. Four strongly agreed, six agreed, and
one was neutral. The final question was I support more of his policy
positions then I oppose. One strongly agreed, five agreed, four were neutral,
and one disagreed. Then they had to answer the student question which is
stated in the first paragraph and six said yes and five said no.

While I was interviewing people in the Walmart parking lot I got some
surveys from a few atheists and a protestant. I had three atheist. Two were
male and one was a female. One of them was between the ages of 21-30 and
the other two were between the ages of 31-40. So with this religion I didnt
get much of a variety. They pretty much all answered the same exact way.
Then I had only one Protestant. He was between the ages of 41-50. I
definitely wasnt able to get any variety there. But I thought it was cool I was
able to get some other religions in my survey since we live in such a Latterday Saint rich population. It was fun to see their view and hear about their
beliefs. It defiantly opened up my mind to try and understand where they are
coming from and why they believe what they do.

They answered question one with two people agreeing and two was
neutral. When asked question two they answered with two agrees, one
neutral, and one disagree. Question threes responses were one strongly
agree, two agrees, and one disagree. The responses to question four was

three strongly agreed and one just agreed. Then all but one agreed with his
policy positions. When they answered if marital status influenced their votes;
100% of them said no.

One of them also commented and said The person could be single,
married, or homosexual and it would not influence my response. This man
was very interesting. He stayed and talked to me after wards about it and I
could tell that he had some very strong opinions on this topic. I was actually
pretty scared to talk to him, because I was afraid I would say something that
didnt coincide with his beliefs that he would light up and chew me out.

There was a ton of interesting stories that happened in my group, but

one of them was really weird. One of my peers was assigned to give out the
survey, with the only difference of the man being a homosexual. While a lady
was filling out a survey she said she wouldnt vote for him because he was
religious. Then when one of my fellow student pointed out to her that yes he
was religious, but he was also gay. This one little thing she missed on the
survey changed her whole opinion of this guy. She was suddenly completely
on board with everything he stood for and approved him as senator
material.

Then another girl I worked with who also took surveys for the
homosexual said that there was one lady who she accidently gave her a
straight mans survey and then she had to go back to fix it and have her fill
out the correct survey; the women said that she didnt even realize the guys
marital status and probably wouldnt have ever noticed if she hadnt told her
about it.

This is the difference between real life and these little surveys. If this
was a real election, everyone would know that the guy was gay. That would
be how everyone defines him. The gay guy who wants to be senator. This
title would be the reason why a lot of people would either vote for him or not.
Depending on if they are more of a liberalist or conservatives. The election
wouldnt really even be on if people think that he would be a good fit for the
job. It would be liberalist trying to get more diversity into congress, while
the conservatives will be defending traditional values and not wanting a
homosexual in office to try and modernize everything.

In conclusion, I believe that they only way to get a completely honest

and accurate survey of who would support this and who wouldnt would be to
have a real gay candidate. People will lie and try to make themselves sound
better and more open minded when it doesnt really affect anything in there
day to day life. But when someone walks in and trys to challenge their

views, we have a problem. People get real defensive and their true feelings
on the topic come out. They dont care who it offends because its only their
opinion that matter.