Census: Same Sex Households Grow Across the U.S.
Holy Bible Belt, Batman! (This article makes me happy. It’s about time.)
Census: Same-Sex Households Grow Across U.S.
By Christopher Palmeri and Frank Bass…
The population of homosexuals living together as partners climbed 36.2 percent, and the increase for married heterosexuals was 5.7 percent, according to census data released today. Even with the gain, same-sex domestic partners make up just 1 percent of all households in the most-populous state.While the far smaller group’s growth rate was expected to outstrip that of married couples, the rise is significant because of its magnitude and what it says about the willingness of gays and lesbians to reveal their status, said William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution in Washington.
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The Census Bureau is gradually releasing details about ethnic origin, age, housing and family relationships in the 50 states — and so far, data for Alabama show same-sex households there climbed 38.8 percent between 2000 and 2010, and that the rise was 42.1 percent in Wyoming and 55.4 percent in Kansas.…
Leaving ‘Gayborhoods’The same-sex marriage debate “changed the landscape,” said Jim Carroll, Equality California’s interim executive director. “People are more willing to identify as a couple. They perceive the changes in our society.”
Greg Facktor, a 49-year-old health-care consultant who lives in Los Angeles’s Hancock Park neighborhood with his partner Rob Meyers, cited other factors, including television’s acceptance of homosexuals as characters, and even stars. He said shows such as “Glee” on News Corp. (NWS)’s Fox allow young people to identify as gay earlier than in the past.
“It used to be you dated members of the opposite sex in college, moved to a big city, lived in a gayborhood and sort of relived your adolescence,” Facktor said. “Today they’re bringing their boyfriends to school functions and mainstreaming in a way that makes them more likely to settle down in parallel to their straight counterparts.”