The straight scoop on gay-owned pets

One of the sites I write for to fill my empty bank account hours is LOGOonline.com, the website of the lesbian and gay cable channel owned by MTV/Viacom.



Yes, in my spare time I am a media entertainment hack. It's true. And, via their blog, I now find out I'm also incredibly trendy. Research shows that lesbians and gay men are more likely to own pets than straight people -- 71 percent of us, compared to "only" 63 percent of straight people. (Which is still the majority of people in this country so I'm not sure why pet lovers haven't taken over yet. Is anyone working on that?)



However, I am bucking the trend when it comes to just what kind of pets I have... dogs, instead of cats, although to be fair, this is the first time in my entire life, since birth, that I haven't had cats:

The poll also reports that GLBT pet owners are somewhat more likely than heterosexuals to own a cat. Of the GLBT pet owners, 63 percent said they owned a cat compared to a little more than half (52%) of the heterosexual pet owners. The inverse was found in dog ownership. About seven out of ten (71%) of heterosexual pet owners said they owned a dog compared to 63 percent of GLBT pet owners.

Statistically speaking, it's all here.

Comments

[Serijna]

"too gay" LOL. Reminds of some embarassing situations when I first arrived in the USA and thought that a gay bar ,was just a happy bar. Had quite some others too. Peckerhead is not some kind of woodpecker, bodyshop is not an erotic business, nosuch thing as a dingleberry pie, no cats in cathouse and no multiple towns in Georgia named Litterbarrel.

Was very grateful to find an American Slang dictionary in a book shop later on

[Lynn]

I agree with "the OTHER Pat": regardless of the sample sizes, it shows that on the basis of sexual identity, we are more similar than might be believed.



ANYONE who truly loves animals is my friend and welcome in my home.

[Christie Keith]

LOL, well, I didn't actually post it as a work of serious investigative journalism... I was just joking around. This release is just marketing bs, absolutely.



And that does remind me of when I was working on the piece on Nathan Winograd and No-kill for our syndicated feature, I originally had a very irritating quote from someone at ASPCA about how SF was "too gay" for its experiences to be repeated anywhere else, and another (funny) comment from Nathan replying to that. The point didn't make the final version (we have serious space limitations), but I wish I'd pulled it up from the old memory banks and included it here.

[Serijna]

Oh my,those are unreliable statistics.

Taking a sample size of 2297(straight households) and break out in percentages vs a sample size of 158( GLBT households) goes against my logic. No wonder "margin of error' is not stated.

Still table 3 and 4 shows no difference of any significance.

[2CatMom]

Funny thing, when I heard Nathan Winograd speak recently he said that the No Kill results he got in San Francisco were poo-pooed by critics who said that the only reason he was able to do this was because of all the gay people in SF - cause everyone knows that gay people like animals more.



I totally agree with THE OTHER Pat - except from a marketing point of view (like advertising pet products in gay newspapers) why would this be of interest to anyone?



Who knows what this signifies. Maybe this signifies that gay people are more giving and compassionate. Maybe this signifies that since gays find it hard if not impossible to adopt children that pets are treated as surrogate children. Maybe it signifies that

we can stop worrying about gay people because they are...GASP...just as boring and conventional as the rest of us.

[The OTHER Pat]

I dunno. They specifically avoided stating a "margin of error", so I'm inclined to wonder whether a difference of 63% v.s. 71% is even statistically significant.



In other words, I'm more inclined to believe that pet owning signifies a way in which gay folk and straight folk are *alike* than I am to add it to a list of ways in which we are *different*.



I sure wish people could just be people, and that sexual orientation could become a complete non-issue . . . . . .