The Cameron Group's "Gay Obituary" Study Is Bad Science & Untrue -

The un-religious right likes to claim that Paul Cameron's "study" PROVES (their emphasis - not mine) that gay people have a shorter life span.

Here is another definitive demolition of Cameron's pseudo-science:

"Cameron, Playfair, and Wellum (1994) counted obituaries in various gay community publications and claimed to be able to use them to calculate the average life expectancy for homosexuals.

"Their conclusion – that homosexual men and women have a shorter life span than heterosexual men and women – provides a textbook example of the perils of using data from a convenience sample to generalize to an entire population.

"Most city newspapers include a section containing death notices for community residents. These notices – which can carry a small fee for printing – typically list the name, age, address, and survivors of the deceased, along with information about funeral or memorial services. Funeral directors often assist the loved ones of the deceased in submitting such notices.

"Gay community newspapers do not have sections of death notices. When the AIDS epidemic began to claim the lives of so many gay and bisexual men in the 1980s, however, many gay newspapers began to print obituaries. Except in the case of prominent community figures, these obituaries are typically written by (or based on information from) the loved ones of the deceased.

Assuming that the deceased person wasn't famous, an obituary appears in a gay community newspaper only if (1) a loved one or friend notifies the newspaper about the death (and, in many cases, writes the obituary) and (2) the editor decides to print the obituary.

Consequently, many gay men and lesbians who die never have an obituary in a gay community publication." Check here are just a few examples of who is left out of gay newspapers' obituaries: http://tinyurl.com/3y9nsu.


from http://gayviewpoint.blogspot.com/