Can't handle the stats...family integrity shift the goalposts

Just typical. Family Integrity had a poll on their website: "Should parents be allowed to use reasonable force to discipline their children?" Which got themselves an immediately supportive response, with over 80% of around 200 people saying yes. Then the poll (according to their website): “…has been hijacked by the anti-smacking lobby, who have been urging people, on the basis of lies, to go to the poll and register a negative vote. We have quoted, below, the email being sent around by them, and have put their slander in bold.” (Click here for the remainder of their statement) And so they removed the poll. Barnardos was nice enough to release a statement showing that this hijacking still could not overtake the yes vote (but got to around 40%). Would have been smarter to release the statement, but keep the vote open, so as to counter this so called attack back on these groups. Were they afraid that they would eventually lose? Would that be because the majority of people are ‘secretly’ in support? Who are they to presume which way the public support goes? To put up a poll, then drop it when things aren’t going your way is another stain to their credibility. In the end, the wiser option would have been to let the poll run its course: have some faith. That’s if they had any to start off with.