Utah third in nation for same-sex marriage; top in male-female marriage

According to research into U.S. Census findings, Utah is third in the nation for the proportion of same-sex couples which choose to marry. Nearly 70 percent of census participants who declare themselves a same-sex couple said they are or plan to be married. North Dakota and Montana are higher at 72.5 and 71.8 percent, respectively.

“I’m not surprised by that,” Utah state Sen. Derek Kitchen, D-Salt Lake City, told the Salt Lake Tribune. Kitchen is currently the only openly gay member of the Utah Legislature and was the named plaintiff in the Kitchen v. Herbert lawsuit that legalized gay marriage in the state seven years ago.

Recently divorce, Kitchen noted that, “Utah has a deep culture of finding stability and support and committed relationships” including same-sex relationships.

Utah ranks highest in the nation for opposite-sex marriage, with 92.7 percent of couples living together being married.

Troy Williams, executive director of Equality Utah, agrees.

“Family is a value that’s instilled in all Utahns. And LGBTQ Utahns share those same values,” he said in a statement. “It’s part of our cultural upbringing.”

Williams hopes the new findings will ease fears that people have had about gay marriage as they “start to see and realize that we’re just Utahns like everybody else, trying to build a family and a happy life.”

The U.S. Census Bureau changed how it asks questions about families for the 2019 American Community Survey that it released in September. Now, for the first time, the survey can provide more information about gay couples and their relationships. The Census Bureau estimates that 8,451 of the 1 million households in the state are headed by married or cohabitating gay couples. That puts Utah in the top 17 states.

This small share is partly due to fewer same-sex relationships overall, which are also low among unmarried partners at just over 5 percent.

Utah women in same-sex marriages outnumber men by a 3-to-2 margin, 3,148 to 2,460. The exact opposite is true among gay couples who are cohabiting without marriage. Men in those relationships outnumber women by a 3-to-2 margin, or 1,555 to 1,018.

Other findings

Nationwide, same-sex married couples have a higher median household income than opposite-sex married couples, but their poverty rates are not significantly different, according to the findings.

Same-sex female married couples had a lower median household income than same-sex male married couples: $95,720 and $123,600, respectively.

Male same-sex married households had a lower poverty rate than opposite-sex married-couple households — 2.7 and 4.2 percent respectively.

Female same-sex married-couple households had a higher poverty rate at 5 percent than both opposite-sex and male same-sex married-couple households.