Sunday, October 25, 2015

Folk Tales


Folk tales 001

Folk tale (ESL 5301-001)

Following is a folk tale told by almost all moms/grandparents to their small kids/grandchildren while eating.  The following story has the moral that “One Should Think Well before Acting.”
                                                       The Crow and the Fox
                 
                  Once upon a time, a fox and a crow lived in a forest.  The crow, being small, took a piece of food from a neighboring house and was happily eating perching on a tree top.  A fox that passed through the way noticed the crow and immediately came up with a plan to trick the crow.  The fox slowly approached the tree and spoke to the crow: “My dear friend, the whole jungle was filled with unpleasant sounds without you and your sheer presence brings life to the jungle.  It would be great if you could sing a song with your sweet voice for other creatures in the forest”.  The crow, flattered by the fox's continuous compliments, opened its mouth to sing.  As soon as it opened its mouth, the entire food fell down and the fox happily ate all the food.  The crow looked at the fox helplessly and learnt an important lesson of life – “Think before you act”. (Sriramvignesh Mani)

The Pony across the River

                  Pony and his mother lived near a small river; he had a very happy lifetime with his mother. One day, his mother said to pony: “Pony, you have grown up, would you help me to carry this bag full of food to your aunt’s home which is located in a village right across the river?” “Certainly. I would be very glad,” said pony.
                  He was laden with food and came quickly to the small river. But there was no bridge over the river. He wanted to go across the river, but he didn’t know how deep the water was. When he was wondering, he saw a cow was eating not far away. Pony quickly ran to cow: "Dear uncle, do you know how deep the river is, or whether I could go across the river? The cow said smoothly with a smile, “don’t worry about it. The river is just to my leg."
                  Pony went back the river and tried to go through the river. At this time, he heard a voice saying, "Pony, pony don’t go! This river is so deep that it drowned my friend last week.” A small squirrel shouted, “Two days ago, one of my friends accidentally fell into the river; the river took him and swept him away."
                  Pony had no idea, how he could go across the river. He had to go back and ask his mother. He returned home and told his mother.  "Never mind, let's go and see," said his mother.
                  Pony and his mother came to the river again. “Try to cross the river by yourself,” Mother said. Pony ventured cautiously, step by step walking through the river. Oh, he knew, neither was it like the cow says, a river so shallow, nor like the squirrel says, so deep. It is most important to do things by oneself. “Thank you, mother." He was particularly happy today.
                  Through this story we know, if we want to understand the truth, the only way is to go and try by ourselves. (Songhe)

Arabian Nights

                  Arabian nights or as the literal translation of the Arabic name “one thousand and one nights” is one of the most famous and probably advanced collections of fiction stories in Arabic literature. The collection was published in a book with the same name, which was translated to many languages and became very famous worldwide.
                  The book tells the story of a king called Shahriar, who used to marry a new wife each day and kill her by dawn. Shahriar kept this habit for long time, until all the girls in the city were either killed or escaped to save their lives.
                  One day, one of the guards of Shahriar told him that the prime minister had a beautiful daughter whom he was hiding for long time, her name was Shahrzad. The king immediately called for his prime minister, and asked to marry his daughter. The prime minister was shocked, but couldn’t say a word other than, yes my lord; then he went home, and sadly told his daughter about the king's proposal, and asked her to escape, while he would stay and probably be killed. Shahrzad was a smart girl; she asked her father not to be worried and to proceed with the wedding arrangements. She simply had a plan; every night she would start a new fiction story to the king, and keep telling the story until dawn; then she would stop and promise to continue the next night; once a story was finished, she immediately would start a new one. The king was impressed by the stories, and was always eager to know how each one would end. Shahrzad kept doing this for a long, long time, until Shahriar forgot about his bad habit, and they lived happily ever after. (Muhammad A. Muhammad)

Folk Tale

                  This is a story  about  a  farmer  and  his  four  sons.
                  Once upon  a  time,  there  was  a  farmer  in  a  small  village  of  India.  He  had  huge  lands  on  which  he  used  to  cultivate  rice  and  wheat.  He  had  four  sons  who  always  used  to  keep  fighting  with  one  another  on  various  petty  issues.  He  used  to  get  sad  and  depressed  seeing  his  sons  arguing  all  the  time  with  each  other.  Overall,  it  was  not  a  happy,  united family  and  the  farmer  was  not  able  to  make  his  sons  realize  the  importance  of  togetherness  in  a  family. 
                  He was  around  75  years  old,  and  the  thought  of  his  sons  fighting  with  each  other  always  used  to  disturb  him.  One  day,  the  farmer  was  very  sick  and  with  each  passing  day,  his  health  started deteriorating.  The  sons  called  the  local  doctor  near  their  village  to  check  their  father  and  give  him  medicines.  The  doctor  made  it  very  clear  that  maybe,  these were the  last  few  days  of  the  farmer’s  life  and  that  he  wouldn’t  be  able  to  survive  for  a  long  time.  Once  the  farmer  got  to  know  this,  he  decided  to  make  the  property  papers  in  order  to  divide  all  his  property  and  money  between  his  four  sons.  But he  was  very  confused  about  the  ratio  in  which  his  property  should  be  divided.  He didn’t  know  if  he  should  divide  all  his  possessions  equally  amongst  his  four  sons  or  he  should  give  claim  of  his  property  in  accordance  with  the  age  of  his  sons. 
                  The sad part  was  that  even  when  the  farmer  was  on  death  bed,  the  four  sons  kept  fighting  with  each  other  on  the  issue  of  division  of  the  property.  The  farmer  made  a  resolution  that  before  dying,  he  would  sort  out  all  the  issues  between  the  four  brothers,  so  that  after  his  death,  they  wouldn’t  fight  with  each  other  anymore.  He  decided  to  teach  them  a  lesson  by  asking  them  to  do  a  small  activity.  He  asked  each  of  his  sons  to  bring  a  small,  thin  wood  stick  and  then  asked  each  one  of  them  to  break  their  wood  stick.  Everyone  was  successful  in  doing  what  their  father  told  them  to  do.  He  again  asked  each  of  his  four  sons  to  bring  a  small,  thin  wood  stick  but  this  time,  he  asked  them  to  tie  together  all  these  four  wood  sticks  in  and  make  a  bundle  of  them.  Once  his  sons  were  finished  following  his  instructions,  he  then  asked  them  to  break  this  bundle  of  wood  sticks.  This time none of his  son  was  able  to  break  the  bundle.  Seeing their sad  faces,  he  asked  all  of  them  to  come  and  sit  beside  him.  He  told  them that his four sons were like four wood sticks.  If they kept on fighting like  this, anyone might very easily break the bond of the family. But if the four of them didn’t argue  or  fight  with  each  other  over  small  issues  and  instead  tried  to  solve  them  by  talking patiently with each other, their family would get strengthened and no outsider  would be able to break their bond.
                  Our  families  are  also  like  small,  thin  wood  sticks.  If  we  keep  fighting  or  judging  each  other  over  several  issues,  we  won’t  be  able  to  maintain  a  healthy,  peaceful  living.  But,  if  we  sort  out  our  issues  and  problems  by  talking  openly  and  calmly  with  each  other,  we  would  live  a  happy  and  healthier  life  and  no  one  would  be  able  to  break  our  bond  in  our  worst  situations.
                  So, what did we learn from this story? We learnt that “unity is strength”. This story  makes us realize that we can conquer the greatest challenges in our lives if we have a  healthy, strong, united family to guard us all the time and help us whenever we need  them.  (Harnoor Kaur)

                                                                     Folk Tale
 
                  In ancient China, there was a man working on his farm one day. Suddenly, a fat rabbit rushed out quickly and crashed into a tree. The rabbit died immediately because it broke its neck. The farmer just witnessed the whole process, so he took the rabbit home for dinner. The rabbit was fresh and juicy; since the farmer was very poor, this dinner was best of the year he ever had. Watching the bones leaving on the plate, the man started to doubt himself, “Even though I work hard on the farm every day, what I get cannot satisfy me at all. Today I did nothing but watched the rabbit hitting the tree and died, but I got a wonderful dinner at the end. So why do I have to work?” Then an idea was coming to him. In the next day, he discarded all his plow tools and sat next to the tree to wait for the same thing to happen. He believed that another rabbit would die for the same reason in some days, and he did not want to miss it. Day by day, the farm was overgrown with grass, and the man could not even see any shadow of rabbit. His story became popular in his town, and parents would use this story to give their kids a lesson that people should always rely on their own hands but not luck. (Jieying)

The Story of Tich Chu
                  Once upon a time, in a small village in Vietnam, there was a little boy named Tich Chu. He was an orphaned child, living with his grandma. Grandma had to work very hard to raise him; she gave him all her love and thoughtful care. However, Tich Chu seemed not to love her; he spent all his time hanging out with his friends and never cared about Grandma.
                  One day, Grandma was so sick that she could not get up. Meanwhile, Tich Chu was not home, still busy playing with his friends. Grandma was very thirsty, and she started calling Tich Chu:
                  - Tich Chu, please give me a sip of water. I am very thirsty.
She called him one time, two times, and three times; but Tich Chu did not show up. Then, she turned into a bird and flew away. Just at that moment, Tich Chu came home looking for something to eat, and he saw everything that happened to Grandma. He ran after the bird and cried:
                  - No, Grandma, don’t fly away. Please stay with me!
                  - I am very thirsty; I have to find water – replied the bird; and she kept flying away.
                  Tich Chu kept running after the bird while crying bitterly. Finally, the bird landed next to a spring and started to drink water there. Tich Chu tried to approach the bird and insisted:
                  - Grandma, I’m sorry, I’m very sorry. Please come back with me. I will give you water, I will take care of you. Please don’t leave me alone.
                  - It’s too late, too late, Tich Chu. I cannot turn back to a human anymore. Cuckoo, cuckoo, koo…- said sadly the bird.
                  Tich Chu burst into crying desperately. He felt regret for having afflicted his Grandma before, and he did not know how to have her back with him. Suddenly, a beautiful fairy appeared and asked why he was crying. Tich Chu told everything to the fairy. Then, the fairy said:
                  - If you want your Grandma back to be a human, you should let her drink the water from a magical spring in a distant land. It is very far from here. I am not sure if you can do it.
                  - Yes, I can. I will do whatever to turn my Grandma back to a human – said determinedly Tich Chu.
                  The fairy gave him a pitcher and showed him how to get to the magic spring. After going over many mountains and rivers, finally, Tich Chu found the spring and filled his pitcher with its water. He came back and had the Grandma bird drank that water. The magic indeed worked; his Grandma was back to being a human. From that day on, Tich Chu always took good care of Grandma, and he never left her alone in sickness.  (Nam Giang Trinh)

                                                      The Rich Man and his Utensils
 

                 Once upon a time there was a rich man. He was very greedy and his house was full of costly utensils. Poor people in his town used to borrow his utensils whenever they had ceremonies in their home. The people had to return the utensil along with a hefty rent after the use. The greedy rich man suddenly increased the rent of his utensils and the people became very sad. One day a very strange thing happened. One man who borrowed the rich man’s utensils returned a couple of utensils more than those he borrowed. The rich man got perplexed and asked the man how come it was possible. The man replied that some of the utensils were pregnant while he took them home and they delivered baby utensils in his home. He also said it was his duty to return both parent and baby utensils back to the owner. The rich man couldn’t believe this story. He knew that it was not possible. However, because of his greedy nature, he thought it was ok to accept the extra vessels from the man. After several days the man again came back to borrow some of the very expensive utensils from the rich man. The rich man gladly gave him all the expensive utensils that he had, in the belief that he would get more utensils and money in return. The man took all the borrowed expensive utensils to his home. Several days passed and the man was not returning the expensive utensils. The rich man became restless and worried. One day he decided to meet the man who borrowed his expensive utensils and went to see him in his home. After some time the rich man reached the house of the other man and inquired of him why he was not returning the expensive utensils. The man replied that this time all the expensive utensils that he borrowed died in his home. So it was not possible for him to return them back. The rich man became silent and couldn’t say anything back to the other man. The moral of the story is, "greediness will make you lose everything.” (Sankar)

Genius Mahosod and the Cow Thief

     Once upon a time, there was a seven-year-old boy named Mahosod. He was very clever. He solved many hard problems easily. People in his town assigned him to be a judge. Whenever people had conflicts, they would go to see him and admit his justice. And his justice never let anyone down.
     This is a chapter in his very long story. A cow owner goes to take a shower in a big lake. He ties his cow with a tree and hopes it is safe. A bad guy walks past and then he takes. The owner on the lake sees everything the thief makes. (I try to make a poem)
     The owner runs to catch that bad guy, but he has to cry. The bad guy denies. “You can’t verify. There are no other eyes.” The bad one smiles. They begin to fight, until some people stop by. The people apologize; they can’t justify, but they know who can try. They take the two guys; they go to Mahosod’s help.
     Mahosod does it easily. The genius asks them simply, “What food you feed this cow?” The thief is so proud; he does take care of his cow. He fed it milk and grains. The true owner complains, he is so vain. I’m a poor man. I fed it with grasses.
     Mahosod smiles. He tells the guy to mix a medicine. If he feeds this kind, the cow will vomit. Then he feeds the medicine to the cow, and waits for some hours, the cow vomits it out.
     Its vomit is the grasses. Then Mahosod asks, which one is arch? The people don’t doubt that the one who’s false. The vomit is grasses, then it ate grasses. Then the man who said that he fed it with milk and grains is the thief. The owner receives, whose cow was thieved. And the thief runs away.
     People salute Mahosod again. The news of his intelligence comes to the King. Then what is the next thing? What’s happening? Please be waiting 'til the next chapter.   (Ariyawat)  


                                                      The Walker and his Animals

            A man, his horse and his dog walked by a rural road when suddenly lightning fell and killed all three immediately. The man did not notice that he had died and continued on his way with the horse and the dog.
            The road had a strong slope. The weather was very hot. It was very dusty also and they had walked a long distance. They were exhausted and thirsty.
            After a curve, the man saw a large beautifully decorated gate. He could see that the gate was the entrance to a huge garden with all kinds of trees and flowers. He saw that in the middle of the garden a huge pool offered fresh water to its visitors.
             The man walked in the direction of the guard that protected the gate. After greeting, the man asked him about the name of that beautiful and comfortable place. The guard said this is the heaven. The man, surprised, said: Oh!!.. Marvelous, we are in the heaven. We are thirsty!. The guard, pointing at the pool, said to the man: In this place, you can drink all water you want. Please, go ahead…but, only you can pass. The man said: My horse and my dog also want to drink water. They also are thirsty. I am sorry – said the guard - In this place the entrance of animals is not allowed.
            The man was angry because he was so thirsty, but he did not think of drinking water alone. He got up, said good bye to the guard and continued walking.
            The road had its huge slope yet and the sun heated up even more. They were really tired at that moment when they arrived to another place. This time the little gate was made of old wood. He could see that the gate led to a dusty road which finished in a puddle of water surrounded by several trees. Next to a tree, an old man was sitting on the ground; he probably was sleeping. The thirsty man and his animals entered and walked in direction of the old man. Good morning!, said the walker. The old man answered with a movement of his head. The man continued: We are thirsty: my dog, my horse and me, said the man. The old man responded: There is a little river next to those rocks. You and your animals can drink all the water you need. The walker and his animals went to the river and they gorged their thirst. After that, they came back to where the old man was sitting and thanked the man for the courtesy. The old man responded: You and your animals can come back when you like. After thanks again, the man said: What is the name of this place? The heaven, answered the old man. Really? But we just passed another place a few miles ago, and its guard told me that was the Heaven! Said the man, That is not the heaven, it is the hell. Said the old man, You should prohibit others from using your name. This information is false and can induct to errors! said the man. No way - rebuked the old man – they really do a favor to us, because in that place stay all those capable of abandoning their best friends. (Elliot)

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Survey accounts


ESL 5301 Survey stories

Survey related

                  Following the unanimous decision in the ESL 5301-001 class to collect surveys from people regarding gay marriages and their related issues on Texas Tech University campus, I set out on a journey to explore and map people’s responses to the series of questions posed by us, a group of ten students taking the ESL 5301-001 course.  The entire process of survey collection was quite interesting for the likes of me, who spends most of my time within the four walls.  With a hope of finishing the surveys, I went to student union building (SUB) on October 1st 2015, around 12:00 noon with a strong confidence that lot of students would be present to grab their lunch.  As expected, the entire SUB was buzzing with lots of activities and students.  To start with, I selected people present in the SUB randomly and requested that they fill out the questionnaire provided they feel comfortable doing this survey.  Though a few people requested clarifications in certain questions, most of the people filled the survey without any problem.  However, few people in my department felt that the questions are too personal and suggested rephrasing the queries in a nicer way.  It should also be pointed out that people who took the survey were extremely nice and polite in answering to me.  Also, with a huge number of people in the SUB, it was extremely easy to find the required number of females and males.  In general, the entire exercise of doing the survey helped me in tuning my skills to approach strangers and also made me realize the importance of speaking coherently to strangers.  (Sriramvignesh Mani)

Story of the collection of the survey

The assignment of collecting the survey for the English writing class was altogether a new experience for me. I never approached any person in my life for filling a survey. The task assigned to me was to get thirteen survey results from six American males, six American females and one from myself. In the beginning, I was bit confused about approaching random people for filling out the survey. At first, I approached my colleagues (six males and two female Americans) in the department of Geosciences. They were very happy to discuss gay marriage and gladly filled out the survey. After finishing the survey, we all started discussing gay marriage and its relevance in Texas. The discussion was really interesting. At the end it was very clear to me that most of the young liberals support gay marriage.  In order to make the survey more reasonable, I went to the student union and approached random unknown female students. I briefly explained to them about the writing class that I am enrolled in and the survey that they can help me with. All of the girls very happily listened to me and agreed to undertake the survey. At the end I was very happy, and  finished completing all the tasks that were assigned to me by the class. (Sankar)

Story of the survey

                  I did my survey on September 30, 2015 in a church group, as I take part in bible study every Wednesday. I was lucky to find out that there were six American males and six females on that day, which just fitted the sample amount I needed to finish. All of them were happy to help me answer the questions. I realized that people felt uncomfortable if I was present next to them; they would discuss it with their friends but would hide their answers from me. At the very first beginning I thought they would answer the questions very quickly, because I just took no more than two minutes to finish it. However, they took more than 15 minutes to think and discuss it with each other, which was out of my expectation. It seemed that Americans were actually very cautious about the gay marriage issue. Since most of them were Christian, I could tell they were struggling to answer the survey, and most of them disagreed with gay marriage, especially those who were older. Overall, this was a great chance for me to study Christians’ acceptance to gay marriage, and I learned that Christians were more conservative than other people. (Jieying Wu)

Survey Process

                  It was relatively easy to obtain the surveys. I decided to ask people located in the Student Union Building. I chose the after lunch time because at that moment it is easier to find the students relaxed. Before starting, I planned to interview student groups instead of asking discreetly. I decided to do this because I thought that it could be faster to complete the surveys: it is more practical to explain the survey to a group than individually. I mostly interviewed students, although I also asked to three employees of the Texas Tech Housing Department. The strategy of group interviews was initially perfect in terms of the time devoted because I could receive several surveys in one shot. I only needed to ask four groups to complete the twelve surveys. However, one of the sheets was not completely filled out. I made this mistake because I did not take enough time to review how each sheet was filled out. This was a defect of my plan that I did not think of. I needed to come back to the Student Union Building and to search for one more person to ask. Finally, I got two surveys more, reaching thirteen surveys, and found more one not completely filled out. (Elliot)

Experiences  while  collecting  Surveys

Since I’m a graduate student in the Chemical Engineering department, I mostly asked the people from my department to fill out the surveys. I asked some of my American colleagues, faculty and  staff members and also the undergraduate students in my teaching assistant (TA) laboratory to fill  the survey. Almost all of the graduate and undergraduate students as well as faculty members  filled out  the  survey  with  a  keen  interest  in  this  topic.  Most of the  staff  members  showed  no  inhibitions  while  answering  the  questions;  they  were  in  fact  very  interested  in  discussing  more about this issue with me and asked my opinions  regarding it. However, one of the staff  members  was  not  very  comfortable  in  filling  it out and  he  simply  said  that  he  doesn’t  support  this  agenda  of  gay  marriage  at  all.  Initially, he assumed that this survey was  a  part  of  some  national  survey  to  be  filled  by  all  the  Americans  and  so he  was  not  ready  to  answer  the  questions.  But once his colleagues told him  that  it’s  just  for  a  graduate  class,  he  filled  the  survey  shedding  some  inhibitions. The undergraduate students were the ones who  showed  a  lot  of  curiosity  in  this  topic  and  spent  a  considerable  amount  of  time  while  filling out  this  survey.  They, in fact, discussed this  issue  with  their  friends  even  after  their  experiments  in  the  laboratory  were  finished.  I felt that women were  more  comfortable  in  answering  the  questions  than  men  and  were  even  interested  in  knowing  the  final  results  of  our  survey.  I think it  would  be  really  interesting  to  see  the  outcome  of  this  survey  as  it  may  or  may  not  give  us  very  surprising  opinion  about  the  people  in  the  Texas  Tech  campus.  (Harnoor)

How I collected the surveys

I had all my surveys done in Holden Hall building in two days. I started my data collection easily with two male undergraduates; these young men were hanging out in the basement and were pleased to help me out with the survey. The next three ones, who, I guessed, were also undergraduates, did not give me such a warm welcome; they just tried to jot down their answers as quickly as they could without smiling or talking. Then, I came into the TA room of the History Department, asking someone there to take the surveys. A female graduate told me that she had never been concerned about gay marriage before. After finishing with the students, I tried to approach some older people in their offices; and I had the most interesting story with an office woman. She wrote and erased her words several times, struggling with the twelfth question and the last one. She even asked me who the instructor of my writing class was; she wondered if it was one of the gender studies professors in the History Department (Are you a gender studies professor, Mr. Leverett? J). I did not totally understand why she had such an inquiry, but I did know that she was not comfortable in answering our survey.  (Nam Giang Trinh)

Survey Story

Last Sunday, it was the Mid-Autumn Festival in China. It means there would have a big reunion party with the whole family in China. I was homesick every day, especially on this day. The Lubbock Chinese Association held a celebration dinner for the Mid-Autumn Festival at the China Star Restaurant. The dinner started at 6 pm and many Americans were invited. I brought my survey of gay marriage to the dinner, I thought it would be a good chance and relaxing time to do the survey. I sat in the table with two American girls, and began my survey. They were very glad to do the survey, and they were very interested in talking about gay marriage and they found four of their friends to do the survey, so It was very easy to finish half of the surveys. After that, I switched to other tables and continued doing my survey. All the people were very nice and glad to do the survey. I thought it was a correct choice to take the survey to the party. (Songhe)

Survey Story

After I had a lunch on Thursday September 24, I was in the Student Union Building. I went to the ballroom, because I thought many people would rest there. I chose the people who weren’t doing their work, so I chose people who were eating or people who were playing on their phones because I think they were free and wouldn’t reject my asking them favors. My strategy was that I went to a person and asked whether he/she was an American, and if the answer was yes, I asked him/her to do a survey.  Everything went very well as I thought; it was very easy to do my surveys. I finished twelve sheets of survey within an hour. Some women also asked me general personal questions such as my major, or my country, but no one asked for my name, nor did I ask theirs. (Ariyawat)




Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Survey


ESL 5301-001                     
Gay Marriage & Issues  Survey – answer them as you wish.

Thank you for filling out our survey!

1. ___ Male             ___ Female

2. Age:    ___ <20    ___ 20-29     ___ 30-39    ___ 40-49    ___ 50-59    ___ 60-69    ___70 & older

3. Where are you from?
___ Texas                ___ USA, not Texas             ___ international

4. How do you identify yourself politically?
___ Republican      ___ Democrat     ___ other (specify)     ___ independent

5. Do you consider yourself religious?
___ Yes, very           ___ Yes, slightly                 ___ No       ___ dislike religion           ___ other: explain

6. Do you have family members who are gay?
___ Yes                     ___ No

7. Do you agree with the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing gay marriage? 5 = strongly agree, 1 = strongly disagree

1               2               3               4               5

8. Did you change your mind on the issue of gay marriage over the past few years? If so, what changed your mind?


9. How do you think the decision will affect the lives of LGBT people? Check the ones you feel are true.
___ they will be healthier and have less stress
___ they will be happier
___ they will be less likely to hide their status
___ they will be more likely to participate in civic and religious activities

10. Do you agree that gay couples should be able to adopt children? 5 = strongly agree,
1 = strongly disagree

1               2               3               4               5

11. What matters most when finding an adoptive home for a child or children? Put 1 as most important, 2, 3, & 4, least important
___ income, financial security                                          ___ having two parents that love each other
___ parental love for children                                          ___ having appropriate gender role models

12. Do you think children raised in a gay family are more likely to be gay than other children?
___ Yes    ___ Yes slightly     ___ No difference     ___ Less likely

13. Do you think gay couples are more stable or less stable than heterosexual couples?
___ More stable                    ___ No difference     ___ Less stable      ____ don’t know

14. How will it affect children to be raised by gay parents? What difference is there, if any?



15. Do you support Kim Davis’ refusal to issue marriage licenses to gay couples?
___ Yes (she should follow her conscience)                             
___ No (she should do her job)
___ No opinion/other opinion

16. Do you feel that the bakers had a right to refuse to bake a cake for gay couples?
___ Yes, they have religious freedom to refuse to do that
___ No, they should not be allowed to discriminate in who they serve
___ other (specify)

17. Which of the following, if any, do you feel have the right to refuse to serve gays? (check as many as you wish, or none)
___ pastors who don’t want to officiate a wedding
___ doctors/emergency responders
___ bakers who feel that their cakes are expression of their art
___ artists who don’t want to create a picture for a gay wedding
___ religious adoption agency which doesn’t want to place children in gay families