Alyssa Gonzalez

Professor Kelby Harrison

Philosophy 25
February 13, 2015
Analyzing Inductive Arguments
In 2012 a poll was taken in Utah on the stance of gay marriage. These results
became significant compared to the results taken just a few years before in 2004. The
three questions being asked in both polls was if the public was opposed to gay marriage,
support gay marriage, or support the civil unions of gays. In 2004, it was no surprise that
the voters showed they were majority against any gay marriage or civil unions due to just
passing the Amendment 3 on November 2, 2004. This amendment, which had only been
added into ten other states, was added to the Utah constitution defining marriage as a
union exclusively between a woman and man.
In the most recent polls of 2012, results of the same three questions show the
public is more favorable towards gay marriage and civil unions. Results now show
opposition to gay marriage has dropped 29% while support for gay marriage and civil
unions is increasing. This percentage represents the 900,000 voters who were registered
to vote out of the population of 1.5 million constituents of the state. This sample was selfselection being taken from the voting system from which all people are aloud to vote if
they are registered to do so. Because the sample was self-selection and used in a voting
system it does not allow any opportunity for the results to be biased. Although the
question does arise if the new opposition stance President Obama has token, has swayed
the mind of many voters.

Earlier in the year of 2012, President Obama took a new stance that supported gay
marriage stating We need to recognize that people are going to have differing views on
marriage and those views, even if we disagree strongly, should be respected. The
President is a world leader whom is influential and could be the answer as to why there
were such significant changes in the results. Survey data from Gallup, Pew, and New
York Times/CBS all show that Americans are now more likely to agree with the
administration than they were just a few years ago. (Kelly Patterson) Because more
leaders and influential people are not showing favor towards gays but allowing them to
be who they please, changes the minds of many people and their beliefs.
I would rate this pool a 9 because the pool is a very reasonable amount for a
sample. The sample consisted of the people in the state of Utah who were randomly selfselected and leaves no room for fallacies. This poll leads to the next question which
asked, if the wording of the questions would have been changed, would it have lead to a
different outcome. It has been debated between using the word gay and homosexuals if
there is a difference.
A more recent study conducted in July of 2009 on a randomly selected sample of
3.338 people. This sample was tested by reading the same question but only replacing the
word gay with homosexual. Results show more people favored and supported the
questions referring to homosexuals as gays or same-sex couples. The word homosexuals
was looked upon as