Magic Statistics

The StatWife and I have just returned home after a week visiting family and friends in the Calgary area.  We had lunch with Peter Lillington, who runs the insightful Anglican prophecy blog The Age To Come.  He took us to an authentic Vietnamese restaurant with an unpronounceable name in downtown Calgary's Chinatown neighbourhood.  We were so engrossed in conversation that I neglected to take any photos.  I do have pictures from another location, however.

The StatWife's brother and sister-in-law live in Priddis, a hamlet on the outskirts of Calgary.  Priddis is just to the left off Highway 22X about a half-hour's drive west from Calgary's southern city limit.  Don't blink or you'll motor right on by.  Click here or here for a map.

Our sister-in-law works at View and Brew, a charming country café with great food and coffee, located in the village shopping mall, which, besides the café, consists of a general store with gas station and a clothing store that keeps very irregular hours.

(Click on photos for larger views.)

When the StatWife told me we were having lunch at a place called View and Brew, I was looking forward to a beer.  The brew turned out to be coffee, but I was not too disappointed because it was good and flavourful.  (It’s roasted by Crickle Creek Coffee Co.)   The food is excellent and inexpensive, portions are huge, and there's such a variety on the menu that it wouldn't all fit into one shot.

I had the Sloppy Joes and shared a piece of Coca-Cola Chocolate Cake for dessert.  Scrumptious (although we couldn't really taste the Coca-Cola).  Others in our party had Soup + Bun, Shepherd's Pie, and Baked Apple Crisp.  We were all well and truly sated.

As one might expect in a country café, there were idiosyncratic touches everywhere.  This sign was posted across from the cash register, for example.

Someone should send that sign to John Shelby Spong.

A small Anglican church is found just a short block down the street.

St James Priddis was locked, unfortunately, so I could only take photos from the outside.  The sign says that services are held every Sunday at 9:15 am.

On Wednesday, 12 September, Statistics Canada is scheduled to release for the first time census counts of legally married same-sex couples.  The statistics are based on data collected during the 2006 national Census.

Already, homosexual activist groups are preparing Canadians for low numbers by complaining that the relevant Census question was improperly worded.  Many same-sex couples found the question too insensitive and/or too obscure to answer.

Canada will release its first census count of same-sex married couples next week, but some activists in the gay and lesbian community are not happy with the way the census treated the question.

Some object that gay couples were relegated to the census questionnaire's "other" box, and some asked whether same-sex marriage should be counted at all.

"I don't think we should be a segregated group just because we're same-sex married. Marriage is marriage," Helen Kennedy, executive director of Egale Canada, an advocate group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered rights, said in an interview last month.

The group urged people to list their relationship as husband or wife rather than filling in the "other" box, and in the end it said many members simply chose not to complete the census in protest.

Why did Statistics Canada frame its questionnaire so that same-sex couples had to enter the specifics of their legal union in the “other” box of the relationship question?

When Canada became the third country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage in 2005, its census officials hurried to include that group in the next count.

The term "spouse" was suggested during focus group testing but proved too confusing for participants, said Anne Milan, a senior analyst at Statistics Canada. Terms like "husband" and "wife" were also ruled out, as they are not commonly used in the gay community, she said.

The end result was an "other" box "where people were encouraged to include same-sex married couple as a write-in response.

Statistics Canada has to design a questionnaire for all Canadians, of course, not just those with a socio-political agenda.  Since, by Statistics Canada’s estimate, only 1.0% of Canadians aged 18-59 are homosexual, it’s not surprising that the relationship question wasn’t to the activists’ liking.

The stories from Associated Press and Canadian Press make it sound like this controversy is news.  It isn’t.  Homosexual activist groups raised the same complaints when the 2006 Census form first became public over two years ago.  Since the actual data are being released this week, however, we get to re-hash the same old grievances in order to prepare the public for low counts.

For example, the headline on Thursday’s International Herald Tribune story, “Canada census to count same-sex couples for the first time”, is quite misleading, in my opinion, given that the Census was held in May 2006.  Why is this making the news only this week?  Because the mainstream media promote the homosexual agenda.

Be that as it may, watch for the Statistics Canada release on Wednesday, 12 September, at 8:30 am Eastern Time.  Point your browser to StatCan's The Daily to get the news first.

More statistical background: In January of this year, Statistics Canada released marriage counts for 2003.  (These data were based not on the Census but on government vital statistics records.)  In British Columbia, where same-sex marriage was legalised by court order on 1 May 2003, 774 marriages (3.5% of the 2003 provincial total) involved persons of the same sex.  Over half of the individuals entering into those same-sex marriages lived outside of Canada.

h/t: Institute for Marriage and Public Policy

Previous related posts:

• No evidence that homosexuality genetically determined
• Statistics Canada estimates 1.4% of adults homosexual or bisexual