Oooo, bad scale on the x axis. "Oppose strongly" and "oppose not so strongly" should be switched, so that there's a decreasing show of support as you move left to right.

This doesn't surprise me at all. When you look at the language that anti-gay groups use, they usually prefer 'homosexual'. It sounds more cold and clinical, and calls to mind the long history of homosexuality being viewed as an illness. Using more academic-sounding terms also distances the reader/listener from the real people - when talking in a neutral or positive way about people they know, I'd say that most are more likely to use casual terms like 'gay'.

I'm curious how much this might reflect people's views and internal assumptions/biases about 'homosexuals' vs. 'gays and lesbians', and how much it reflects how survey participants view the survey - as Selidor mentions, anti-gay groups use the term 'homosexual' more prevalently; people might be less likely to announce support to a questioner who appears to oppose the issue. Either way, it's a very interesting finding!

Hm, interesting.

I wonder if it has to do with the word "sex" in homosexuals. When I think of a bigoted person saying the word, I tend to think of them as saying homoSEXuals, with the emphasis on the sex. While "gay" and "lesbian" might conjure an image of, say, two people of the same sex standing at the altar getting married, homoSEXuals might conjur an image of two people having sex. And to some people, that's icky.

It appears that the link leads to an unrelated article about Obama vs. GOP polling. Am I missing something? I can't seem to find the original source of this poll.

This question would be difficult for me answer, whether the word used is 'gays' or 'homosexuals', as I would generally oppose permitting anyone to serve in the military.

Lolwut?

I'm hoping its just the people they polled- because honestly, this doesn't make any sense.

Most people in same-sex relationships tell their neighbors and extended family they are "gay" or "lesbian." They don't say they are "homosexual." I suspect this makes their neighbors and relations more likely to attach vague positive feelings to the categories "gay" and "lesbian," without necessarily detaching the stigma from "homosexual," which is more often used in clinical settings, and by anti-gay bigots.

"Homosexual" sounds terrible. I never call myself homosexual. Gay? Yes. Lesbian? Yes. Queer, dyke, ... Yes. Homosexual is the one word that hasn't been reclaimed yet by the gay community, and, frankly, I don't want it. When I hear it, I see a fire-and-brimstone preacher spitting the word at me.

Only speaking anecdotally here, but I've talked to several people who are quite viscerally opposed to the notion of gay men in the military, but who are either ambivalent to or accepting of lesbians in the same roles.

This survey, like many others I've seen, doesn't account for that distinction (fair enough, as it has no bearing on the reality of DADT policy). But I would guess that a lot of people who feel this way would instantly think of gay men when they hear the word "homosexual," and perhaps even choose "oppose strongly," but choose one of the more in-between replies when presented with an option that includes "lesbians."

On the other hand, we're only looking at one of many polls here. Have a look at this page - http://www.pollingreport.com/civil.htm . Lots of polls with slightly different wording on the issue are aggregated there. Interestingly, a recent ABC News poll used only the word "homosexuals," and still yielded a higher percentage of favorable responses than the poll charted above. So I'd be a bit cautious before jumping to easy conclusions about word magic, even when they seem to make sense.

I'd be careful before drawing sweeping conclusions about society based solely on this study.

For one, the sample size isn't terribly large (only 1000 out of hundreds of millions of Americans). For another, who exactly was being polled here? Was it a random sample? What age group? What genders? Then there's the question of how they conducted the survey--there's a big potential for voluntary response bias.

I'm not saying there isn't a possible relationship here between word choice and response. There very well may be, but this one, small survey isn't going to prove that. Be careful when dealing with statistics. "People like gays and lesbians more than they like homosexuals" is not a valid conclusion to make based on this scant evidence.

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