Two years ago today, the Supreme Court finally passed marriage equality in a historic case (Obergefell v. Hodges).
And in an effort to see how that decision has changed the lives of LGBQ people (hint: it's changed a lot), Gallup surveyed more than 300,000 adults about both their sexuality and their marital status between June 20, 2016 and June 19, 2017.
The poll found that as of this year, 10.2% of LGBQ people are married to someone of the same gender, which is up from 7.9% the months before SCOTUS legalized marriage equality across the country. It's only slightly higher than in 2016, though, when 9.6% of LGBQ people were married to someone of the same gender.
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Though that percentage may seem small, if broken down by the 12,832 people identified as LGBT, it accounts for about 130 LGBQ people who are now married — that's a whole bunch of weddings.
Still, Gallup finds that an increasing number of LGBQ people are single. The percentage of single LGBQ people actually rose over the last two years, from 47.4% to 55.7%. And about 13% of those who identify within the community are currently married to someone of a different gender.
None of this means that legalizing same-gender marriage wasn't worth it, or didn't change lives. For those 130 people who are currently married, as well as anyone who wants to get married in the future, it's beyond important.
And, in fact, Gallup notes that despite the small increase between 2016 and 2017, same-gender marriages are still becoming increasingly common. It's not too shocking that the number of same-gender marriages grew quickly after the SCOTUS decision — which many older LGBQ people had been waiting on for years — and has now slowed down.
Gallup expects growing acceptance of same-gender relationships to only increase the number of marriages, as younger generations feel less restricted to actually marry the person they love.
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