Study: More tell U.S. they're gay partners

The number of Colorado Springs same-sex couples reporting their status as “unmarried partners” to the government increased 473 percent from 1990 to last year, according to a study.

The trend in Colorado Springs is part of a “gay demographic explosion in some of the country’s most politically and socially conservative regions,” said the study by the Williams Institute, a California-based think tank. With 711 same-sex couples reported for 2006, the group remains a fraction of the city’s population.

The institute studied how the number of same-sex couples has changed in all states and the 50 largest cities in the country. Nationally, the number of same-sex couples who reported their status to the government increased 437 percent during the same period.

“Clearly, more same-sex couples are willing to openly identify themselves as such,” said Gary Gates, a senior research fellow at the institute and author of the study.

The study relies on surveys conducted in 1990 and every year since 2000 by the U.S. Census Bureau. The surveys don’t ask about sexual orientation, but respondents can identify their relationship as an “unmarried partner” with someone of the same sex. Respondents can choose other words to identify their relationships, such as married partner, roommate or sibling.

Gay people “coming out” probably accounts for most of the increase in same-sex couples, rather than merely an increase in population or an increase in the number of gay people in relationships, Gates said. Colorado Springs’ population increased 32 percent from 1990 to 2006.

The increases in gay couples were higher in politically conservative areas, and especially areas where voters approved bans on legal recognition of same-sex relationships, he said.

Colorado voters last year rejected a measure to recognize same-sex relationships and approved an amendment to the state constitution that says marriage is between only a man and a woman.

The Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy is part of the School of Law at the University of California at Los Angeles.

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