The closet is open.
Not just in California and New York but in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona and West Virginia, too. More gay and lesbian couples are openly describing living under the same roof, new federal census results show.
The numbers have emerged all summer long, a few states at a time. There was a 55 percent increase in male partner households in Wisconsin, from 3,862 in 2000 to 6,003 in 2010 and an 83 percent increase in female partner households in Oklahoma, from 2,952 to 5,409.
“One of the biggest surprises has been the successive increases,” said Gary J. Gates, a researcher on gay and lesbian issues at the UCLA School of Law. “They’ve gone up by another 50 percent. The magnitude is larger than I’d expected.”
So far, the Census Bureau has published results for 29 states and Puerto Rico, with data for Indiana, Illinois, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota and Washington due next week. In the 2010 survey, census workers collected more detailed information on same-sex couples than ever before. Later this year, the bureau plans to issue statistics on same-sex partners identifying themselves as married.
From the pulpits to the statehouses, from the courthouses to the think tanks, culture warriors are mining the data for new material, experts said. In the national debates on marriage, military service and child custody, much turns on recognition.
“It shows we’re an integral part of U.S. society, and it also shows our social and political strength,” said Warren Blumenfeld, an associate professor of multicultural education at Iowa State and part of a same-sex couple. “With increased visibility, we are seeing increased backlash from the right wing.”
Across the country, as local media outlets examine the census data, gay and lesbian couples are struggling to explain what changed in 10 years.
“It was 2004 when all the marriage amendments went through the states,” Julie Brueggemann told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “That really triggered a lot of people to be more public and talking about their lives. It’s not surprising at all to me that the number of couples would have jumped so dramatically.”
A local man told the State Journal in Madison, Wis., that the data was evidence of the city becoming “a post-gay community, where the bulk of your identity doesn’t have to be about being gay.”
The new data also includes in-depth research on same-sex couples raising children together, a demographic that has received little scrutiny in past surveys. The 2010 census used four distinctions: “related children,” “own children,” “no own children” and “no related children.”
“The gay baby boom people talk about in the media — same-sex couples raising kids through adoption and surrogacy — there’s no doubt that’s increasing,” said Gates, the UCLA researcher. “But the bulk of same-sex couples raising children is people who had children when they were younger, before coming out. That is usually in more conservative parts of the country. That kind of parenting is on the decline.”
And that kind of detail, Gates said, will rise to the fore in the next decade’s social debates.
“In court cases that deal with relationship recognition, marriage and child custody,” he said, “these data are used to show that same-sex couples in a demographic and economic sense look like other couples, but they’re treated differently under the law.”
Some see limited value in the data, at least in court.
“An individual practitioner goes before a judge to argue the law,” said D’Arcy Kemnitz, executive director of the National LGBT Bar Association. “Social science data becomes the footnotes.”
Others see more immediate value in the publicity.
“The dominant group will start to grant minority groups equal and equitable treatment when the dominant group sees this as serving its vested interest,” Blumenfeld said. Citing the example of the same sex marriage law in New York, he added: “The coverage was not only centered around the equality of same sex marriage but also looked at the economic benefits it gave the state of New York. The businesses were ecstatic.”
Not just in California and New York but in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona and West Virginia, too. More gay and lesbian couples are openly describing living under the same roof, new federal census results show.
The numbers have emerged all summer long, a few states at a time. There was a 55 percent increase in male partner households in Wisconsin, from 3,862 in 2000 to 6,003 in 2010 and an 83 percent increase in female partner households in Oklahoma, from 2,952 to 5,409.
“One of the biggest surprises has been the successive increases,” said Gary J. Gates, a researcher on gay and lesbian issues at the UCLA School of Law. “They’ve gone up by another 50 percent. The magnitude is larger than I’d expected.”
So far, the Census Bureau has published results for 29 states and Puerto Rico, with data for Indiana, Illinois, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota and Washington due next week. In the 2010 survey, census workers collected more detailed information on same-sex couples than ever before. Later this year, the bureau plans to issue statistics on same-sex partners identifying themselves as married.
From the pulpits to the statehouses, from the courthouses to the think tanks, culture warriors are mining the data for new material, experts said. In the national debates on marriage, military service and child custody, much turns on recognition.
“It shows we’re an integral part of U.S. society, and it also shows our social and political strength,” said Warren Blumenfeld, an associate professor of multicultural education at Iowa State and part of a same-sex couple. “With increased visibility, we are seeing increased backlash from the right wing.”
Across the country, as local media outlets examine the census data, gay and lesbian couples are struggling to explain what changed in 10 years.
“It was 2004 when all the marriage amendments went through the states,” Julie Brueggemann told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “That really triggered a lot of people to be more public and talking about their lives. It’s not surprising at all to me that the number of couples would have jumped so dramatically.”
A local man told the State Journal in Madison, Wis., that the data was evidence of the city becoming “a post-gay community, where the bulk of your identity doesn’t have to be about being gay.”
The new data also includes in-depth research on same-sex couples raising children together, a demographic that has received little scrutiny in past surveys. The 2010 census used four distinctions: “related children,” “own children,” “no own children” and “no related children.”
“The gay baby boom people talk about in the media — same-sex couples raising kids through adoption and surrogacy — there’s no doubt that’s increasing,” said Gates, the UCLA researcher. “But the bulk of same-sex couples raising children is people who had children when they were younger, before coming out. That is usually in more conservative parts of the country. That kind of parenting is on the decline.”
And that kind of detail, Gates said, will rise to the fore in the next decade’s social debates.
“In court cases that deal with relationship recognition, marriage and child custody,” he said, “these data are used to show that same-sex couples in a demographic and economic sense look like other couples, but they’re treated differently under the law.”
Some see limited value in the data, at least in court.
“An individual practitioner goes before a judge to argue the law,” said D’Arcy Kemnitz, executive director of the National LGBT Bar Association. “Social science data becomes the footnotes.”
Others see more immediate value in the publicity.
“The dominant group will start to grant minority groups equal and equitable treatment when the dominant group sees this as serving its vested interest,” Blumenfeld said. Citing the example of the same sex marriage law in New York, he added: “The coverage was not only centered around the equality of same sex marriage but also looked at the economic benefits it gave the state of New York. The businesses were ecstatic.”
