Final Summary/Reaction

My survey got an overwhelming response of 71 people.  I also received a large range of people as I had hoped from ages 15-65 and of all the religions I put on my survey.  Because of the large age range I did not expect my results to be so close to unanimity on the subject of gay marriage with 92% being for it.  Only 89% of participants were for civil unions, but I believe this question may have been confusing because some people might say that since gay marriage should be legal there is no need for civil unions.  If I were to do this survey again I would edit this question and possibly make it so only those who disapprove of gay marriage could answer the question.  I also thought it was interesting that while only 8% disapproved of gay marriage, 10% admitted to treating openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender people worse than straight people.  Of course, people all have biases so I did not think this was very surprising.  There were also people on the other side of the spectrum with 3% saying they treat openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender people slightly better and 1% saying they treat them better.  However, the vast majority (86%) said they treated them equally.  28% of the participants believe sexual orientation is a choice and in future surveys I would try to correlate levels of education with this question.  Overall, I found the participants in this survey to be very sympathetic towards LGBT people, but in spite of this, 46% of people still use the word "gay" in a way not meaning homosexual or happy.  Based on my experience, I was not surprised by this large percentage, but I think it is important because using "gay" incorrectly does not always mean the user of this word believes a gay person is stupid, although that is often how the word is used.  I believe the overall pro-gay sentiment I received may also have to do with 79% of people having gay or lesbian family members and 67% having a good amount of exposure to people of different sexual orientations on a daily basis.