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Census finds increase here in both homosexual and heterosexual pairs

Wednesday, August 15, 2001

By Gary Rotstein, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

The Pittsburgh wedding cookie table may still be commonplace, but couples are increasingly doing their baking with no marriage license.

	Gail Gregory and Marc Levine at their Point Breeze home.-- "The advantage is we're not locked into forever with each other, although at the present, I'd have no qualms about that," says Levine. (Franka Bruns, Post-Gazette)

The latest Census 2000 data for the region show the number of both heterosexuals and homosexuals defining themselves as "unmarried partners" is surging, while fewer people are living together in marriage.

While the number of households containing married couples declined 6 percent in the six-county metropolitan area between 1990 and 2000, the unmarried-partner households nearly doubled. There are still 12 times as many married couples as unmarried couples in the region, but that's half the gap that existed a decade earlier.

Couples like Point Breeze 50-somethings Marc Levine and Gail Gregory are increasingly common -- veterans of divorce who have come together in a less formal relationship than marriage.

The Census Bureau's April 2000 national survey found 37,413 unmarried, heterosexual couples sharing a residence in the metro area.

Dinah Denmark and Trish Oleska of Mt. Lebanon, a lesbian couple who've been together for six years, are among 3,693 same-sex couples counted locally. That's five times as many as in 1990, although analysts say that rate of increase is exaggerated by changes that were made in Census Bureau methodology and a greater willingness by homosexuals to acknowledge their relationships on a government form.

Demographers and sociologists say the decline in married couples locally mirrors national trends under way since the 1970s. Nationally, the number of unmarried couples jumped about 72 percent during the 1990s, to 5.5 million. In this region, it jumped 92 percent.

	Online chart How couples have changed

National breakdowns on how many of those are homosexual are not yet available, but it appears that more than 1 million gays and lesbians identified themselves as partners in a household relationship. That's a much lower figure than the actual number of homosexuals, because it does not count those who are unattached or living separately from partners.

Analysts say the rise in unmarried partners has accompanied such societal shifts as increased divorce rates and more liberal attitudes toward premarital sex.

Institutions that value the tradition of marriage aren't willing to concede, however, that the trend is inevitable.

"It's a phenomenon we're very much aware of and concerned about," said the Rev. Kris Stubna, secretary of education for the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh. "It seems the number of couples coming to us who are cohabitating before marriage is increasing, and it's become a major pastoral concern."

Pamela Smock, associate professor of sociology at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, noted that prior studies have shown each new group of young adults is cohabitating at a higher rate than their predecessors. But the studies also have found nearly half of unmarried partners are 35 or older, like Levine and Gregory.

"The advantage is we're not locked into forever with each other, although at the present, I'd have no qualms about that," said Levine, a landlord and artist who says he's wary after two failed marriages because he knows how a husband and wife can become increasingly different from each other.

Denmark and Oleska don't even have the option to consider themselves married, because same-sex unions are not recognized legally in the state, but they expressed pride just in being able to list themselves on the census form as "unmarried partners," the same as heterosexual couples.

Homosexuals were given that census option for the first time in 1990, but the government's count of same-sex partners that year was considered flawed. People of the same sex who listed themselves as "spouses" that year were allocated to different household categories, since the government did not recognize same-sex marriages; this year they were placed among the unmarried partners.

That change, in addition to an educational campaign by the Census Bureau and gay advocacy groups to convince homosexual couples that their identities would be confidential if they listed themselves as unmarried partners, has provided what advocates consider to be the best baseline yet measuring that minority group.

"This data will help people know gay people are not just some abstract idea -- we're your neighbors -- and that changes the discussion from some noisy debate you hear on TV to actually affecting real people's lives," said David Smith, spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay advocacy organization.

Still, Denmark was disbelieving that the census showed fewer than one of every 200 households in Allegheny County was inhabited by a gay or lesbian couple. Of the 45 metropolitan areas of 1 million or more for which information has been released so far, Pittsburgh was 44th in its rate of same-sex households, with only Buffalo ranking lower.

"One out of 200? That's nothing. ... It's very disappointing," said Denmark, 38.

"I think that speaks to the closet factor that still exists, which is unfortunate. The only way we're going to start to be able to get the same advantages that opposite-sex couples take for granted is by showing there is significance in numbers."

The rate of same-sex-couple households within city of Pittsburgh boundaries was somewhat higher than for Allegheny County and the region, but a group of eastern suburbs had even higher rates. Edgewood and Wilkinsburg each showed at least one out of 100 households containing such couples, and Swissvale had almost that rate.

About one in 10 unmarried-partner couples in Allegheny County identified themselves as homosexuals. There are slightly more female than male homosexual couples in the county and region.

Gary Gates, an Urban Institute research associate analyzing the same-sex data, said one key census finding that may dispel myths is that virtually every county in the country contains homosexual couples. That includes all 67 counties in Pennsylvania, many of them rural.

"When they think of policies that affect gays and lesbians, many people think that only affects people in big cities. What these data suggest is that's not the case at all, whether we're talking about same-sex marriages or domestic benefits or adoption rights," Gates said.

Tim Rozgonyi, Post-Gazette assistant technology systems editor, compiled data used for this report.