San Francisco Has the Most Gay Marriages in America, and These U.S. Cities Round Out the Top 10
The Trump Administration has not only gutted protections for LGBTQ citizens, but has also ceased the keeping of records on LGBTQ citizens. So finding out, for example, which American city has the most gay marriages got a little bit harder. But there’s still an unexpected method of crunching those numbers: IRS tax returns. As you might expect, San Francisco is number one, and a suburb of that city, Santa Rosa, is number two.
A new analysis from the Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan joint initiative from the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, looks at tax returns from 2015, the first year same-sex marriage was legal. The analysis ranks the largest “commuting zones,” which are similar to what we’d just call “metro areas” or, well, “cities.”
The Tax Policy Center ranked the 10 cities with the highest rates of same-sex marriage as well as the 10 cities with the lowest.
San Francisco had the highest percentage of gay marriage — 1.52% of all marriages in San Francisco were same-sex. Santa Rosa, California, was second with 1.25%, and number three was Seattle, with 1.09%.
The list is rounded out by Boston, Portland (Oregon), Miami, Albuquerque, San Diego, New York and, finally, Portland, Maine. (Way to go, Portlands!)
On the other end of the spectrum, Provo, Utah, only had 151 same-sex marriages — or just 0.13%. Brownsville, Texas, was next, followed by Youngstown, Ohio.
When it comes to statewide rates of same-sex marriage, Washington State comes in third as well, tied with Delaware. Vermont and Massachusetts are ranked one and two. And though Provo, Utah, was the city with the fewest same-sex marriages in all of the United States, it was North Dakota that came in last on the statewide scale.
The Tax Policy Center has also uncovered other interesting statistics. For example, both gay and lesbian married couples report higher incomes, and 15% of same-sex marriages are interracial — more than double the rate for opposite-sex couples.
What do you think about the Tax Policy Center’s findings — did you think another city had the most gay marriages? Let us know in the comments!
Featured image by Franckreporter via iStock
