Churches They Are a Changin’: Americans’ Attitudes Toward Same-sex Marriage Are Transforming the Face of Congregations

Earlier this year, PRRI released a survey showing that support for allowing same-sex couples to marry has risen an astonishing 21 percentage points since the first legal gay weddings were performed in Massachusetts in 2003. Now, a new study of American congregations shows that Americans’ shifting perspectives on same-sex relationships are also transforming church life.

The National Congregations Study (NCS)... found that 48 percent of congregations today allow gay and lesbian couples in committed relationships to be members, up from 37 percent in 2006. More churches are also allowing gay and lesbian congregants to serve in volunteer leadership positions: 26 percent of churches reported that no volunteer leadership positions were closed to gay and lesbian members, up from 18 percent in 2006.

There were some differences among denominations.

More from the Public Religion Research Institute.

Census struggles to reach an accurate number on gay marriages

From Pew Research:

Same-sex marriage is now legal in Washington, D.C., and 17 states... Now the federal government’s task is to produce an accurate count of same-sex married couples.

Acknowledging a “very serious problem” of flawed same-sex marriage data, the U.S. Census Bureau is testing new marriage and relationship questions on its surveys in hopes of producing more accurate numbers in the next few years. According to a presentation earlier this month, the bureau found problems with the data “much worse” than the agency expected.

There is intense interest in the numbers and characteristics of same-sex married couples, as a growing number of states have legalized same-sex marriage and the federal government—reacting to a Supreme Court ruling last year—has expanded the rights of those couples. The numbers are important to know as a measure of how society is changing, to gauge the well-being of same-sex married-couple families and to help government agencies assess the need for various types of programs. For example, marital status can affect eligibility for some programs such as welfare and food stamps.

Attitudes toward Gay Marriage

From the American Consumers Newsletter:

Support for gay marriage hovers just below the 50 percent mark, according to the 2012 General Social Survey. Forty-nine percent of American aged 18 or older now agree that gays and lesbians should have the right to marry. Support for gay marriage has climbed rapidly over the past few decades. In 1988, only 12 percent of the public supported the right of gays and lesbians to marry.

One factor behind the rising support for gay marriage is generational replacement.... Changing attitudes also play an important role in the growing support for gay marriage...
***
A Pew Center poll shows similar tracking.

Same-Sex Marriages: Legal Issues

The recognition of same-sex marriages generates debate on both the federal and state levels. Either legislatively or judicially, same-sex marriage is legal in seven states. Other states allow civil unions or domestic partnerships, which grant all or part of state-level rights, benefits, and/or responsibilities of marriage. Some states have statutes or constitutional amendments limiting marriage to one man and one woman. These variations raise questions about the validity of such unions outside the contracted jurisdiction and have bearing on the distribution of federal benefits. ...

This report from Congressional Research Service (via Federation of American Scientists) discusses DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act] and legal challenges to it. It reviews legal principles applied to determine the validity of a marriage contracted in another state and surveys the various approaches employed by states to enable or to prevent same-sex marriage. The report also examines House and Senate resolutions introduced in previous Congresses proposing a constitutional amendment and limiting federal courts’ jurisdiction to hear or determine any question pertaining to the interpretation of DOMA.

Same-sex couples in New York State

From the The Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law

Data are compiled from PCT 15, Census 2010 SF-1. Same-sex couples are identified in households where Person 1 describes his or her relationship with another adult of the same sex as either a “husband/wife” or “unmarried partner”. The reported number of same-sex couples in the state and the associated figure for same-sex couples per 1,000 households are based on official Census tabulations.

More HERE.

The Marriage Equality Act

This document [PDF] explains that all marriages, whether of same-sex couples or different-sex couples, will be treated equally under all laws of the state. Accordingly, the Act applies to all taxes administered by the Tax Department as of the effective date of July 24, 2011.

Marriage equality map

Arthur @AmeriNZ "made a couple illustrations to depict the reality of marriage equality in the US now that New York is officially the sixth US state to enact it. The map...depicts Free States, which have marriage equality, those that forbid it (the majority) and those that are somewhere in between (the second biggest group). This sort of map shows up curiosities, like the northern state of Michigan banning marriage equality and the southern state of North Carolina not doing anything at all (yet). California won’t be counted as a free state until its infamous Proposition 8 is overturned one way or another."

Counting Same-Sex Couples

It has been written that the Census Bureau has no data on same-sex couples; this is incorrect. Go to Families and Living Arrangements and scroll near the bottom. Not only will one find tables, one will discover a couple working papers that describe the political and statistical challenges about gathering such information. Gay marriage is a particularly complicated statistical issue.

Also, on American Factfinder, look for Table B11009. UNMARRIED-PARTNER HOUSEHOLDS BY SEX OF PARTNER in the American Community Survey.

There's a UCLA professor named Gary Gates, who has put together some statistics based on 2000 Census data and other sources, including the Gay and Lesbian Atlas.

It's Not You, It's Your Data

I was away at my niece's high school graduation in Charlotte, NC in the middle of June, so I didn't come upon Bill Dowd's What? Why me? Intrusive queries from the Census Bureau, published in the Albany Times Union on Sunday, June 14, until this past weekend.

Mr. Dowd writes what I guess is a cheeky dealing with the American Community Survey. But I'll reply to his points seriously anyway.

"In a few days your household will receive a questionnaire in the mail for a very important national survey, the American Community Survey. When the questionnaire arrives, please fill it out and mail it back promptly. The U.S. Census Bureau is conducting this survey and chose your address, not you personally, as part of a randomly selected sample."

Interesting that this very process nullifies any statistical viability of such a survey.

The address is randomly sampled; I do not understand how this "nullifies any statistical viability". It's not totally random in that, if your address is picked, safeguards are in place so that the address won't be selected again soon.

Not only have I now received another Census Bureau letter concerning "The American Community Survey," I also received a questionnaire I am informed I must fill out and return, under penalty of law.

From Census News Briefs #67: "A person who 'refuses' or 'willfully neglects' to answer any census questions is subject to a fine of not more than $100. A person who 'willfully' provides false information can be fined up to $500." But it isn't the intent of Census to get people fined; it is to get the information it's required to collect.

They again demand my cooperation, even though they swear they don't know who I am since I was "randomly selected" -- by them.

Same source: "The Census Bureau requests names of people residing in the household, to ensure full coverage and minimize the likelihood of duplication, and a telephone number, in case it must follow-up to obtain missing or unclear information..."

I suppose I'm being unnecessarily stubborn in asking what these survey questions have to do with those topics:

How many times have I been married?

How many times has my spouse been married?

How are the two people in the household related to each other?

What are the household residents' ethnic origins?

When did the residents move into the current residence...

What is my monthly condominium fee, if applicable?

Has anyone in the household ever served in the military?

What kind of work do the residents of the household do?

Relationships and residence characteristics have implications in everything from health care to road design. Other questions involve voting rights, government benefits and other issues.

Unless the Census Bureau has, while I was sleeping, been assigned the task of planning the nation's highways, running the health care system, handling public safety programs, and building new schools, that makes no sense. The information it demands obviously will be shared with someone outside the Census Bureau. Many someones, no doubt.

No, Census does not plan the nation's highways; it provides the data in the aggregate which allows transportation planners to plan highways, educators to build or raze schools, and the like. Bill Dowd's individual information isn't being shared. Roger Green's individual information isn't being shared. The data provided show how many children in a particular block group, not characteristics of a particular child. In fact, the Census Bureau is very quick - overly quick, some believe -to SUPPRESS the data when it seems possible likely that an individual person or household might be revealed.

I'm hoping that Mr. Dowd actually look at the data already created through the American Community Survey so he can see that no individual person's information is revealed, only totals for various geographies. If he -or anyone else - needs help deciphering this, they can leave a comment and I'll do my best to explain.
***
On another Census topic, I was please to see this: White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs confirmed during a press briefing [last week] that the Obama Administration was "determining the best way to ensure that gay and lesbian couples are accurately counted" in the 2010 census. The Wall Street Journal reported... that the Administration had directed the Census Bureau to explore ways to tabulate responses to the census relationship question, to produce data showing responses from married couples of the same sex.

The Census Bureau decided during the Bush Administration that it would re-code same sex spouse responses as "unmarried partners," citing provisions of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that it believed prohibited the tabulation of data on marriages that are not between opposite sex couples, as well as concerns about data quality based on responses collected in the American Community Survey. Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) sent a letter earlier this week to President Obama, urging the Administration to recognize same-sex marriages in the 2010 census. Rep. Quigley and more than 50 other members of the LGBT Congressional Equality Caucus wrote to the President last month, suggesting that the Bush Administration had misinterpreted the DOMA and saying that reporting statistical data on same-sex couples "simply provides basic information about how Americans respond to the Census Bureau's questions" and "is not tantamount to federal recognition of same-sex marriage."

I never believed that DOMA forbade reporting what is happening in the states, and this is the type of data openness I suspect that Census would have preferred.

Census Nixed Married Gay Couples

While the Canadian census will count same-sex married couples, the Census Bureau in the US contends that the federal so-called Defense of Marriage Act -- which defines marriage as solely between a man and a woman for all purposes related to federal regulations -- prohibits it from recognizing same-sex marriages, such as the ones now legal in Massachusetts and California. "For the 2010 survey, the bureau intends to maintain the policy established in 2000, whereby it will edit the responses of married same-sex couples. Same-sex spouses will be reported as "unmarried partners" in all census tabulations. Read the Census position.