Gallup: 123,000 same-sex marriages since high court ruling

NEW YORK – A new Gallup survey estimates that 123,000 same-sex marriages have taken place across the U.S. in the year since the Supreme Court ruling that legalized such unions nationwide.

Gallup says the proportion of gay and lesbian cohabiting couples who are married has increased from 38 per cent to 49 per cent during the year.

The results, released Wednesday, are based on tracking interviews conducted throughout 2015 and 2016.

By Gallup’s estimates, there are now about 491,000 same-sex marriages in the U.S., up from roughly 368,000 a year ago.

Gallup estimates that 3.9 per cent of U.S. adults are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Of these adults, 9.6 per cent report being married to a same-sex spouse, up from 7.9 per cent before the court decision on June 26, 2015, Gallup said.

There was a gender difference — 10.5 per cent of the men and 8.8 per cent of the women reported being part of a same-sex marriage.

At the time of the court ruling, same-sex marriages were taking place in 37 states and remained banned in 13 states, although many same-sex couples in those states got married elsewhere. Gallup said the same-sex marriage rate rose over the past year by 13 percentage points in the states whose bans were struck down by the high court, and by 10 points in the other states.

According to Gallup, the percentage of LGBT Americans living with a same-sex domestic partner declined from 12.8 per cent to 10.1 per cent over the past year, reflecting couples who got married and those who ended their partnership.

Half of LGBT Americans continue to identify as single or never married, Gallup said.