Gay demographics could reshape electoral landscape
USA Today
By Gary J. Gates
November 15, 2007

On Desperate Housewives recently, Susan finally realizes her new Wisteria Lane neighbors Bob and Lee (both men) are not just business partners, and exclaims, "Oh, that's super! Yeah, I've seen a lot of cable, so I get it. You're just great."

New analyses of Census Bureau data suggest this scene is playing out increasingly across this nation as same-sex couples become more visible in even the most conservative neighborhoods. What remains to be seen is whether politicians understand what this means.

Since 1990, the Census Bureau has tracked the presence of same-sex "unmarried partners," commonly understood to be lesbian and gay couples. From an initial count of about 145,000 same-sex couples in 1990, the 2006 data show that this population has increased fivefold to nearly 780,000 couples. The number of same-sex couples grew more than 21 times faster than the U.S. population did. So either gay recruitment efforts have succeeded, or lots more lesbian and gay couples are "coming out" on government surveys.

As a demographer, I say it's the latter. In a 1992 survey by the University of Chicago, 2.8% of men and 1.4% women identified themselves as lesbian, gay or bisexual. Ten years later, a National Center for Health Statistics study pegged that figure at 4.1% — almost one-and-a-half times more men and three times more women.

Growing support

Meanwhile, support for gay people grows. In the late 1980s, Gallup polls found about 30% of Americans thought "homosexual relations between consenting adults" should be legal. A May 2007 poll finds this figure has risen to 59%.

If it's no surprise that Americans are becoming more comfortable living among openly gay men and lesbians, the Census data do pack a wallop that politicians ignore at their peril. Since 1990, the number of self-identified same-sex couples in Mountain, Midwest and Southern states has averaged a sixfold increase. Compare that with the more liberal East and West Coasts, where increases have been less than fourfold.

Mountain states such as New Mexico and Colorado now rate among the nation's "gayest" states, ranking 2nd and 9th in the concentration of same-sex couples. Utah, where President Bush received more than 70% of the vote in 2004, has moved from 38th in 1990 to 14th in the most recent rankings.

Red to 'purple'

Political pundits say many of the Mountain states will be battlegrounds in 2008 as they transition from red to "purple." Small wonder, then, that Arizona recently became the first state to reject a voter referendum to limit marriage to male/female couples. More generally, changes in the number of same-sex couples might be a leading indicator of which historically red states are trending purple.

The bellwether state might be Utah. In 2005, Salt Lake City approved a benefits program for lesbian and gay couples. Identifying openly as gay no longer represents an honor code violation at Brigham Young University. And, perhaps most striking, the state now has three openly gay state legislators. That's one more than in the U.S. Congress. Shades of purple?

In the past few elections, strategists used voter referendums and rhetoric against marriage rights for same-sex couples to mobilize religious conservatives. This "wedge issue" strategy banked on widespread discomfort with gay and lesbian couples that is clearly eroding.

As a gay demographic tidal wave empties the closets in some of the most conservative states, any notion that the rights of same-sex couples and gay men and lesbians are somehow separate from those of mainstream America looks politically iffy at best. In fact, using the gay and lesbian community as a political wedge might just wedge candidates into a losing corner.

Gary J. Gates is a senior research fellow at the UCLA School of Law's Williams Institute and co-author of The Gay and Lesbian Atlas.