What percentage of the population is gay, or LGB as we are now meant to say? Surveys in the US suggest that most of us think that the number is quite large, perhaps one in ten. Certainly if one looks at popular soap operas in the UK the gayers are everywhere which is no doubt how the liberal media elite think they need to reflect reality. But hang on...
An ONS study out this week showed that just 1.7% of the population think they are LGB. Among 16-24 year olds the number is 3.3%. As a tolerant liberal I do not think that there is some "evil homo plot" to "convert" us all to becoming friends of Dorothy. So I am minded to believe that it is not that more young folks are gay than older folks it is just that in 2016 Britain among young folks it is really easier to be out and proud than it once was. Older folk just don't feel that way so only 0.6% of OAPs say thay are LGB. I beter the real number is a tad higher.
But even if we accept that 3.3% of the population is LGB that is way lower than the numbers we actually think are gay. And that is down to just one thing, in my humble view, the over-representation of openly gay figures in the media. That brings us to the gay hotspot of Weatherfield in the solidly working class terraced streets of Manchester.
These are the streets that voted solidly no in the referendum but Coronation Street was about the only street in town without a Brexit poster. On the other hand its gay community is thriving. The vicar is gay. Natch, this is the CofE we are talking about. The vicar was torn over the summer between which of the two other leading gays on the street he wanted to bunk up with. Then there is the lesbian girl and her partner. So five of the forty leading characters on the Street are very out and proud. that makes c12% of the population. Ooop[s a reader points out there is Sophie so make that six of forty - 15% of the folks on Coronation are gayers - what a typical Northern working class community it ,must be.
In Ambridge there is always more than "one gay in the village" even if the data suggests that in most small English villages there are no LGBs. Yes, I know that Radio 4 listeners in Islington or Brighton may find this hard to swallow but in most British villages even the CofE vicar is straight. As for Albert Square it makes Brighton look like the straightest place on earth...
It is fantastic that Britain is so tolerant of the LGB community. It was not always that way. Remember the shock and horror when there was a first gay kiss on Eastenders and lesbian kiss on Brookside? Thankfully we have moved on. Nearly all of us now accept that gay is normal. The only abnormal thing is the way media liberals have created utterly incredible soap opera homo hotspots as they depict how they think the rest of us live our real lives.