Survey finds most same-sex couples getting married are women

BOSTON (AP) A survey found that two-thirds of the gays who applied for marriage licenses in Massachusetts on the day same-sex weddings became legal were women, and 40 percent of those female couples said they had children in their households.

``To the extent that people associate marriage with children, and the stability that marriage provides when you're raising children, you might see women more likely to be getting married, because the female couples are more likely to have the children,'' said
Gary Gates, a demographer at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. and the author of the recently published ``Gay and Lesbian Atlas.''

Overall, one-third of the 752 couples surveyed in 11 cities and towns from Provincetown on Cape Cod to Springfield in Western Massachusetts had children living with them, The
Boston Globe reported Tuesday. The Globe found a total of 403 children whose parents applied for licenses to be married.

Gates said the results of the Globe survey largely correspond to what researchers already know about the gay and lesbian community in Massachusetts, and the nation as a whole.


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Gay couples strike out
Boulder clerk says law bars her from issuing licenses
By Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News

BOULDER - A county clerk sympathetic to gay rights refused marriage licenses to same-sex couples Monday, bowing to state law.

Linda Salas told each of 28 couples who came before her that Colorado statutes permit marriage only between a man and a woman - then said she hoped to see them again.

Supporters cheered the couples as they left the clerk's office and went down the stairs of the county building.

"We knew we were going to get rejected," said Neil Fishman, 48, who has been in a relationship with Thomas Bohlinger, 46, for 10 1⁄2 years. But he was saddened anyway.



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Court mulling Indiana ban on gay marriage
ICLU challenged the state prohibition; an IU law professor thinks ban will stand.
By Tim Evans
 
As same-sex couples lined up Monday to marry in Massachusetts, people on both sides of the simmering national debate are awaiting the outcome of a legal challenge to Indiana's law banning same-sex marriage.

The Indiana Court of Appeals is currently considering the challenge filed by the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, which is representing three couples denied marriage licenses in Hendricks and Marion counties.

The Indiana case is similar to the one that prompted the landmark ruling in Massachusetts, in that it is seeking to overturn a state law banning same-sex marriages, said Ken Falk, legal director for the ICLU. But, Falk noted, the laws in each state are different and the Massachusetts decision has no bearing on Indiana courts.

Meanwhile, Indiana University law professor Daniel O. Conkle said he doubts the Indiana Court of Appeals will find the state law unconstitutional.

"It would be extremely surprising if a court in Indiana, which is a state that certainly is moderate in political and legal philosophy, would (strike down the state ban)," said Conkle.