Fox News ‘Misrepresents’ Its Own Gay Marriage Poll
A Fox News commissioned poll on same-sex marriage supposedly finds that a mere 37% of Americans support same sex marriage. The poll offers a civil unions option for respondents to choose, which 37% did. 25% opted for “no legal recognition” of same-sex relationships. The poll canvassed only 913 registered voters.
All of this is to be expected from Fox News, but what’s beyond the pale is the misrepresentation Fox News opted for to frame their story about the poll in a news report titled, “Fox News poll: Majority opposes gay marriage, doesn’t want constitutional amendment.”
Timothy Kincaid at Box Turtle Bulletin explains it quite well:
I’ve looked at this question upside and downside. I even played it backwards in case Satan had a secret message that only Led Zeppelin fans could hear. But try as I might, I see no question about “do you oppose gay marriageâ€.
I prefer Haagen Dasz ice cream [sic]. I really do. In fact, I think it is by far the best ice cream readily available in your local market. But if I’m at your house and you are serving homemade blackberry pie and you offer a scoop of Dryer’s vanilla, I’ll say “yesâ€. Because while I do love me some Haagen Dasz, I do not oppose Dryer’s.
You see, I understand the difference between preference and opposition. But I guess that is a subtlety which is too confusing for Fox. Or, at least, I hope that they were being stupid and not going for intentional deceit. I vastly prefer idiot to liars.
“There is actually nothing in the data that supports this conclusion,” that the majority “opposes gay marriage,” Zack Ford at Think Progress, writes, and adds:
A slew of polls have surveyed voters’ beliefs about marriage equality since President Obama’s endorsement last week, but the data collection is quickly becoming lazy and the interpretation sloppy. Monday’s CBS/New York Times poll has been roundly criticized for its incredibly small sample size (615) and the odd framing of its questions. Fox News unsurprisingly conducted a poll of its own in the same fashion and eagerly spun the results to accommodate its anti-equality agenda.
On Monday, in, “Why You Can Ignore Today’s CBS Poll On Civil Unions And Gay Marriage,” we here at The New Civil Rights Movement wrote:
I don’t trust any poll that doesn’t canvass at least 1000 respondents. Also, I don’t trust any poll that doesn’t release the raw data, especially the questions asked and the demographic breakdown.
While Fox did release statistical information, the gay marriage question was question number 42. We don’t know what questions 1 – 41 were. For all we know they could have been questions about religion, pedophilia, STDs, or any 41 of a number of issues that are flash points for people about same-sex relationships.
The pollster Fox News used has a questionable history of using extremely low sample sizes in political polls. While our rule of thumb here is any national or statewide poll that does not canvass 1000 people is questionable at best. In this poll, the combined team of Anderson Robbins Research and  Shaw & Company Research polled 913 respondents, which is close, but the team in this election cycle has offered GOP 2012 presidential race polls with sample sizes of, for example, 354 people, 356 people, and 407 people — far from a reliable measurement, in our opinion.
Senior Research Fellow at the Palm Center and author of Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America, Nathaniel Frank today published an article at The New Republic: “Don’t Believe the Polling on Gay Marriage!” It’s an important read.
My bottom line: polls are nice, moving the real numbers is about sharing our personal stories.
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
