At any rate, assuming that there are 30 million homosexuals out of the US population of 300 million, then this number from the Census doesn't seem all that high.
Census: 150,000 Gay Couples Report They're Married. About 27 percent of the estimated 564,743 total gay couples in the United States said they were in a relationship akin to "husband" and "wife," according to the Census Bureau tally.
Nearly 150,000 same-sex couples reported being in marriage relationships last year, many more than the number of actual weddings and civil unions, according to the first U.S. census figures released on same-sex marriages.
About 27 percent of the estimated 564,743 total gay couples in the United States said they were in a relationship akin to "husband" and "wife," according to the Census Bureau tally provided to The Associated Press. That's compared with 91 percent of the 61.3 million total opposite-sex couples who reported being married.
A consultant to the Census Bureau estimated there were roughly 100,000 official same-sex weddings, civil unions and domestic partnerships in 2008.
So of the 1,129,489 homosexuals who are in couple, only 300,000 said their relationship was like a marriage. And there are only 200,000 homosexuals who've had weddings or claimed domestic partnerships.
I do not believe this tiny percentage of the homosexual population can trump the claims to marriage that the 122,600,000 married heterosexual's have to marriage.
That said, I do believe Civil Unions should be recognized and given the same status as Marriage. But I do not believe the meaning of marriage should be twisted into something it is not.
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By your same argument, the effect of legitimizing formal same sex relationships as marriage would have a negligible effect on the "institution of marriage" as a whole, so what's the point to opposing something so inconsequential?
ReplyDeleteI'm a fairly conservative guy, but this whole opposition to gay marriage thing just rubs me wholly the wrong way. I mean, really, 2 same sex people want to get married. Who cares? What business is it of anyone except them? Let the "several states" decide how they each want to handle it and move on to things that matter. Gay people getting married doesn't effect me, my wife, my kids or my life at all. (If you really care about my wider thoughts, I blogged about this subject here.)
Dave,
ReplyDeleteYou make a very compelling Libertarian argument on your website for gay marriage but as I've posted as well, if you have to add "gay" to marriage, then you are twisting the meaning of the word. Marriage is between a man and a woman. Changing that meaning is like saying your are flying to London as you get on a boat. Yes, you are travelling and yes, you are reaching the same destination but the means of transportation are entirely different. I whole-heartedly support loving unions but the meaning and history of marriage should not be forced to change to satisfy a teeny tiny percentage of the general population.
Welll....what if you take a Pan Am Clipper? Huh? What then? Nya Nya! :p :D
ReplyDeleteJust kidding. I've said before (and unlike the President when he says that, I HAVE said it before) that IMO the idea solution to this is for the government to only recognize civil unions-for everybody, gay or straight-and then allow the individual couples to sanctify (or not, as they chose) their formal legal relationship as a "marriage" in the belief system of their choice, each of which would be free to apply their own "terms and conditions" to what they consider a marriage. Really, the only business the government has in marriage is in the legal aspects of the formal relationship anyway. Let's limit it to that.
P.S. I'd love to have had the chance to fly transatlantic on a Clipper. They were supposed to be pluuush. *sigh* Born 50 years too late, that's me.
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