Only 1.5 per cent of people in the UK are gay, lesbian or bisexual according to new official statistics – not the 6 per cent figure the Government usually claims.
The figure comes from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) which questioned hundreds of thousands of people in the research.
The ONS found 1.1 per cent said they were gay or lesbian, after speaking to around 545,000 adults.
Staggering
And after quizzing around 220,000 adults, the ONS found 0.4 per cent who said they were bisexual.
According to the study, 2.4 per cent of adults who live in London said they were gay, lesbian or bisexual.
Responding to the figures, and speaking in light of the Government’s plans to bring in same-sex marriage, Mike Judge of The Christian Institute said: “It is staggering that such a monumental change is being carried out on behalf of a tiny proportion of society.”
Opposition
Commenting on the new figures, Ben Summerskill of homosexual lobby group Stonewall, commented: “We reckon 6 per cent, the figure the Treasury has used for some time, is a sensible estimate.”
In 2003 the former Labour Government endorsed figures from Stonewall which claimed that between five and seven per cent of the population were homosexuals.
The coalition Government is pushing ahead with its plans to redefine marriage despite much opposition.
A number of Government ministers and MPs want to keep marriage as it is and a nationwide petition against homosexual marriage – organised by the Coalition for Marriage – has been signed by over 600,000 people.