Same-sex marriage in Utah is on the rise
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The number of same-sex marriages in Utah rose both before and after the Supreme Court's 2015 decision to legalize them nationwide.
Why it matters: More than 6% of Utah adults identify as LGBT — the 15th-highest percentage of any state, including D.C., per UCLA's Williams Institute.
The big picture: Nationally, about 41% of same-sex couples who got married did so between 2015 and 2019, a new Census Bureau report finds.
Catch up quick: Before the SCOTUS decision, a Utah judge struck down the state's same-sex marriage ban in 2013 after it was found unconstitutional.
- The decision temporarily allowed same-sex couples in Utah to marry until the Supreme Court halted the judge's ruling, allowing more time for the high court to consider the issue.
By the numbers: In 2022, about 61% of same-sex households in Utah were married, a nearly 24% jump compared to 2013, per census data.
- The percentage of married same-sex households peaked at almost 70% between 2017 and 2018.
Zoom out: There were about 1.3 million same-sex couple households nationwide as of 2022, per the latest American Community Survey (ACS) data, compared to about 565,000 in 2008.
- About 741,000 of those involved married couples, up from about 150,000 in 2008.
Zoom in: Among U.S. states, Delaware (81.4%), New Hampshire (72.3%) and Wyoming (70.7%) have the highest share of same-sex couple households who are married.
- Washington, D.C. (48.2%), Alaska (48.1%) and Tennessee (47.9%) have the lowest.
Caveat: There's no 2020 data because the COVID-19 pandemic interfered with the Census Bureau's collection efforts.
- The bureau has also struggled in the past to accurately count same-sex marriages.
- The ACS in 2019 began specifically asking about same-sex spouses and unmarried partners in American households, a tweak meant to improve data collection efforts.
- The Census Bureau is now experimenting with new questions about sexual orientation and gender identity to better count and understand a historically overlooked group.
Reality check: While Obergefell v. Hodges protected the right to marry at the federal level, lawmakers in many states are still seeking to curtail LGBTQ+ Americans' rights.
- In 2022, former Democratic state Sen. Derek Kitchen — one of the plaintiffs who sued the state over its ban — said he intended to introduce legislation to codify same-sex marriage protections.
- Kitchen, the Utah Legislature's only openly gay lawmaker at the time, left his post the following year.