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发帖数: 2153 | 1 http://www.npr.org/2011/09/27/140859242/census-131-729-gay-coup
by NPR Staff and Wires on September 27, 2011
The Census Bureau released a revised estimate Tuesday of the number of same-
sex married couples living in the United States: More than 130,000 same-sex
households recorded themselves as married. Another 500,000 same-sex
households indentified themselves as unmarried.
The figures provide a rare snapshot of married and unmarried gay couples in
the U.S. based on the government count conducted last year, when gay
marriage was legal in five states and the District of Columbia. It comes at
a time when public opposition to gay marriage is easing and advocacy groups
are seeking a state-by-state push for broader legal rights.
Some 131,729 same-sex couples checked "husband" or "wife" boxes on their
decennial census forms, the first time people could do so since gay marriage
became legal in Massachusetts starting in 2004.
Gary Gates, a demographer with the UCLA School of Law's Williams Institute
on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy, says that some of those 131,000
might not be legally married, however.
"We think that about 70 percent of them might be legally married, but some
of them are in civil unions and domestic partnerships, and some of them just
view their relationship as spouses even though they are not legally married
," Gates tells All Things Considered host Michele Norris.
The 2010 tally of married gay couples is higher than the actual number of
legal marriages, civil unions and domestic partnerships in the U.S. Gates
puts the actual number of legally recognized gay partnerships at 100,000,
even with New York legalizing gay marriage in June.
The total of 646,464 gay households in the U.S. was a downward revision of
the Census Bureau's count of 901,997 released last month. Gates says the
bureau had to make the adjustment after determining that coding errors
resulted in an exaggerated count for the initial number.
"If a different-sex couple makes an error such that they record the wrong
sex for one partner, they look like a same sex-couple," Gates says.
Gates says that there are so many different-sex couples that, if only a few
make that error, there's a large group of same-sex couples who might be
incorrectly identified as such.
Where Do Same-Sex Married Couples Live?
Broken down by state, the highest share of households with reported same-sex
couples — both married and unmarried — was in Washington, D.C., at nearly
2 percent. Washington was followed by Vermont, Massachusetts, California,
Oregon, Delaware, New Mexico and Washington state. On the other end of the
scale, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming had the smallest shares, each
with less than one-third of 1 percent.
"[What] we learn is that there are same-sex couples virtually everywhere in
the U.S.," Gates says, "[and] many of them live outside of some of the urban
areas that many people associate with the gay and lesbian population."
Nationwide, about 51 percent of the couples last year were female. Nearly 1
in 5 of the same-sex couples was raising children at home — widely
distributed among those who reported being married and those who did not.
"Every step is a step forward in acknowledging that, yes, we do exist," said
Lois Farnham, of Burlington, Vt., who recorded a civil union with Holly
Puterbaugh the first day they were allowed in 2000 and then legally married
her in 2009.
Farnham, 67, said she expected the census numbers would underestimate the
number of people in such relationships, noting that many same-sex couples
keep quiet about their married status. "They can't share that with a lot of
people for family or job security reasons. It's still an issue and people
are still being discriminated against," she said.
Puterbaugh, 65, said many couples live as if they're married without making
it formal. "You have to remember that there are many straight couples who
have chosen not to marry for whatever reason that may be," she said.
Demographer Gary Gates also says that many same-sex couples still use terms
like "roommate" explicitly to hide their identity, so he says that the new
number might still be an undercount of the number of same-sex marriages.
"About 514,000 additional same-sex couples use the term 'unmarried partner,'
Gates says. "We did a survey suggesting that at least 4 percent of those
couples are actually legally married, but they use the term 'unmarried
partner' because they thought [the census] was a federal survey and the
federal government doesn't recognize their marriage — so they thought the
term 'unmarried partner' was more accurate."
The new same-sex data also come as battlegrounds lie ahead over gay rights.
Voters in North Carolina and Minnesota will be deciding next year on the
fate of constitutional amendments banning gay marriage, while the Maryland
Legislature is expected to consider a bill that would legalize it. | D**S
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