A small but vocal minority
Following on from my post about 'otherness' (know your enemy, 13 July 05), I want to highlight some of my findings about the nature of prejudice. As part of an assignment for a module called 'Bent Screens', which looked at the representation of homosexuality in the media, I undertook a survey of people's attitudes to gay kissing. The survey polled some 300 students and what the results indicated was that the vast majority of them were pretty tolerant of scenes of homosexuality in the cinema and on television, however there were a small and vocal minority who were strongly against. For example if you compare people with opinions on either side of this debate, according to the survey, it is five and a half times more likely that the homophobe will have stonger opinions about gay kissing, compared with someone who is supportive of homosexuality.

See the full survey here.