I just told a survey that I thought marriage should not be legal
It's not that I disapprove of marriage... obviously, I support the institution, and am happily planning my wedding, in between looking for work.
But just now I received an automated survey call which asked me the question:
"Do you believe that marriage between only one man and one woman should be legal?"
Re-read that question. It took me almost a full second to understand what I was hearing. I mean, obviously it should be legal for a man and a woman to be married. That's not under credible debate anywhere.
The only significant marriage-related debate is about whether marriage should be restricted by gender (the so-called "same-sex marriage" question). So what were they really asking? They were asking about marriage equality, and the question was worded in such a way that the only sensible answer ("yes, marriage should be legal") would most likely be interpreted as opposing equality.
And as should be obvious to anyone who knows me, my position on that, based on all I hold sacred, is that no, marriage should not be restricted.
So I had to give them a false answer, in order to give them the true one.
I thought about posting this in mock_the_stupid, but is it really stupidity? It feels more like the question was deliberately crafted this way, to skew the responses, so as to falsely inflate the statistics for one side or another.
Certainly, I could be wrong. Sometimes I'm too cynical. But this question was being asked by an organization (the "National Organization for Marriage") with a clear agenda. From the name and the slant of the question, their agenda seemed pretty clear, and a quick post-call trip to the website confirms it. They're not only opposed to marriage equality, they're also opposed to increasing lay oversight of church finances. In short, they're the Roman Catholic Church, wearing a disguise as a citizen's group.
Ultimately, of course I said no, and the survey ended. I am kind of curious what would have happened if I'd said "yes", like a good little gender-preference bigot.