Monday, March 07, 2011

Lying for god

ff-surveygraph

Last month conservative Christian lobby group Family First launched an "issues survey", asking the public such heartwarming questions as

New Zealand should protect marriage as being one man – one woman.
and
New Zealand should change the law to acknowledge the humanity / personhood of the unborn child from conception and protect that unborn children throughout the entire duration of pregnancy.
The survey was widely publicised by liberals, who swarmed it, with numerous people commenting that they'd never answered "strongly disagree" so many times in their lives. But when the results [PDF] were released over the weekend, they showed no such disagreement, instead showing overwhelming strong agreement with every view Family First is pushing with only a few percent - or none at all - disagreeing.

This is just a little bit fishy. And as Imperator Fish points out, the level of disagreement shown is so low that it would require only a couple of dozen people to disprove. That many people have expressed disbelief already.

So, what's going on? Did Family First simply make the "results" up? Or did they simply chuck any response which obviously didn't conform to their peculiar worldview? Either way its not a particularly honest approach from a supposed ethical watchdog - and it is being treated with the contempt it deserves.