Posted by Dale Carpenter: New Census study comparing gay and straight married couples: http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_06_14-2009_06_20.shtml#1245458695
Gay and straight married couples are demographically very similar in terms of likelihood to be raising children, age, income, race, whether they own or rent a home together, education levels, and employment. And both are unlike unmarried same-sex partners (and, I suspect, unmarried straight couples), who skew younger, more educated, more wealthy, are much less likely to be raising children, and are much less likely to have invested in a home together. That's what the Census Bureau has concluded based on a sample of same-sex couples who live together and call themselves "married," although some live in states where they can't legally marry and some may identify as "married" even when they can't be. Here's the Census Bureau chart, which you can enlarge by clicking on it: If you can't see it well above, you can find it [1]here. There are many fascinating results here, only a couple of which I want to highlight now. The data about child-raising is especially significant since one common argument in the SSM debate is that marriage is centrally about providing a stable environment for children. Straight married couples are somewhat more likely to be raising children (43%) than are lesbian married couples (38%) or gay-male married couples (32%). But the difference is not huge, and separates all three categories from unmarried couples, gay and straight, who are far more likely to be childless. And while lesbian married couples are more likely to be raising children, the difference between them and gay-male couples is not nearly as large as commonly thought. Also, a higher proportion of gay male couples are married (or consider themselves married) than are lesbian couples (52% of gay male couples v. 42% of lesbian couples). Among other things, this means proportionately more lesbian than gay male couples are raising children outside of marriage (20% v. 8%). The debate over gay marriage is moving from the abstract to the empirical. That's especially true as more states gain more experience with actual gay marriages. Unfortunately, so far the Census Bureau is resisting including gay married couples in the 2010 Census, arguing that DOMA forbids it. I'm not sure that's right, though of course the existence of DOMA didn't stop the Census Bureau from collecting this data. None of this demographic information proves that gay marriage "caused" anything in particular. And of course it doesn't resolve the debate over whether states should permit gay couples to marry. But it does fill in some missing information about what gay families and gay marriages look like. And it turns out that, in some significant respects at least, they look a lot like the traditional ones. (HT: [2]iMAPP) References Visible links 1. http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12614608?nclick_check=1 2. http://www.marriagedebate.com/ Hidden links: 3. file://localhost/files/dale-Census_Bureau_chart_on_gay_and_straight_married_couples.jpg _______________________________________________ Volokh mailing list [email protected] http://lists.powerblogs.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
