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Gay atlas reveals key data

By Eli Sanders
Special to The Seattle Times

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There's nothing sexy about the census.

Perhaps that explains why, in all the talk about this country's rapid advances in gay rights over the last few years, most of the discussion has centered around either the still-hot issue of same-sex marriage or last year's watershed Supreme Court ruling decriminalizing gay sex.

Both certainly represent defining moments in the push for gay and lesbian equality. But when historians go looking for the major events that propelled this decade's relatively swift reappraisal of America's position toward homosexuals, they are likely to point to the thick, decidedly unsexy pages of the 2000 U.S. Census as an equally important advance.

For the first time in U.S. history, the 2000 census counted gays and lesbians. Not all gays and lesbians — just those living together as partners — but still, the effect of the unprecedented count was tremendous. It made visible a minority group that until 2000 had been, demographically speaking, invisible.

As underscored by authors Gary J. Gates and Jason Ost in their new "Gay & Lesbian Atlas" (The Urban Institute Press, 229 pp., $49.50), a colorful and user-friendly compilation of the 2000 census data on homosexuals, the change this data produced was mind-altering.

Consider this anecdote from the atlas: In August 2001, The Clarion-Ledger newspaper in Jackson, Miss., reported that the census had counted 4,774 same-sex couples in the culturally conservative southern state. When informed that 55 of those same-sex couples were living in his hometown, Republican state Sen. Dean Kirby told the paper, "Surely you jest! Wow! I have never met any of those people."

By showing that gay and lesbian couples are present in 99 percent of the counties in this country — and in very large numbers in King County — the 2000 census made gay people more real. It made them everyone's potential neighbor, and therefore made legal discrimination against gays more difficult to condone, setting the stage for the events of the last two years.

The atlas, released in March, is a treasure trove of fascinating and often surprising data. It's no coffee-table book; the explanatory passages can be a bit academic, and its utilitarian graphics are not as pretty as the price might suggest.

Still, it's sure to delight gays and lesbians interested in learning more about gay America. It is also certain to be used by politicians and marketers trying to learn more about gay location patterns, and will inform public debates over gay rights — debates that generally are marked by a poverty of hard facts and a surplus of opinion and conjecture.
 
Some numbers to work with

Estimates based on the census data put the number of gays in America somewhere between 4 million and 6 million people, or between 2 and 3 percent of the U.S. adult population.

The range in these estimates comes from the widely held assumption that the census figures represent an undercount, perhaps by as much as 50 percent, because many gays and lesbians are still wary of revealing their sexuality to the government.

Even the high estimate of 6 million, however, shows that while gays and lesbians are a significant part of the population, they are also one of the country's smaller minority groups. It's a finding that can cut both ways, providing ammunition not only for those who want more attention paid to gay issues but also for those who want to dismiss them.

Clearly mindful of this, the authors of the atlas focus more on ranking cities and states with large gay populations than on comparing the total gay population to the total U.S. population.

For example, it's difficult to figure out, from the atlas, that the total number of same-sex couples counted by the census is only about 600,000. That figure would probably shock those who have been following the contentious gay marriage debates, because it shows how relatively small a pool of potential gay marriages actually exists nationwide — again, a finding that could cut both ways.

The figure of 600,000 same-sex couples is almost certainly an undercount, but say you double it: Still, there are only 1.2 million same-sex couples in America. Quadruple it and you're at 2.4 million. For comparison, the census found 24.8 million married heterosexual couples with children — and that's just the married straight couples with children.

Urban population highest

The location patterns revealed in the atlas show one reason the gay-rights movement has been so successful despite its relatively small numbers. In virtually all of America's centers of commerce and power, gay people, as well as gay couples, are represented in disproportionately large numbers.

There's no mystery as to why this has become the case. Historically, rural communities and parts of the country distant from major urban centers have been far more hostile to gay people. The urban gathering of gays and lesbians that has resulted from this hostility has helped the gay-rights movement become a powerful political force.

In Washington, this phenomenon can be seen quite clearly. While much of the state has a low concentration of same-sex couples, the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett metropolitan area has the third-highest concentration of same-sex couples relative to population in the nation, ahead of even New York and Los Angeles.

And Washington as a whole ranks third in the nation, behind only California and Vermont, in its overall concentration of same-sex couples.

Interestingly, lesbian couples in Washington tend to live outside the state's metropolitan centers more often that gay male couples, with high numbers of lesbian couples on the Olympic Peninsula and in the San Juan islands. (The only "very high" concentration of gay male couples in Washington is King County.)

This mirrors a national trend in which lesbian couples tend to live outside major urban areas more often than gay male couples. Favored spots for gay male couples in this country include: San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and Miami. Favored spots for lesbian couples include: Santa Rosa, Calif.; Santa Fe, N.M.; Burlington, Vt.; Corvallis, Ore.; and Madison, Wis.

The usual theories as to why this occurs are that lesbian couples earn less because they are women, and therefore can't afford expensive metropolitan areas as easily as gay men, and also that gay male couples sometimes experience more hostility outside of metropolitan areas than lesbian couples.

Data may be used in court

With two lawsuits demanding same-sex marriage rights in Washington currently headed for the state Supreme Court, both sides are undoubtedly eyeing the facts, figures, and charts presented in the atlas. Gay-rights advocates, mindful of the fact that their numbers are concentrated in King County, took pains to represent gay couples from all over the state in the lawsuits, and to file suit in two different counties.

Gay-marriage opponents, seeking to highlight the relatively small numbers and overwhelmingly urban nature of Washington's gay community, held a May rally at Safeco Field in which some 20,000 gay-marriage opponents were bused to the Seattle stadium from outlying areas.

Message: We are just outside the city gates, and there are more of us.

The two positions highlight the question of the moment, both locally and nationally, when it comes to gay rights: Will those who are not mapped out in this atlas — that is to say, the vast majority of Americans — side with advocates of gay and lesbian rights, or against?