IGF CultureWatch

The Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law is one of our community's most important think tanks, producing high-quality studies on sexual orientation and public policy.

Its latest study, Geographic Trends among Same-Sex Couples in the U.S. Census and the American Community Survey, points to significant increases in the number of gay couples who report their status on government surveys-from 145,000 in 1990, to just under 600,000 in 2000. The Institute's study then uses the Census Bureau's 2006 American Community Survey (ACS) of 1.4 million representative adults to determine, among other things, the number of same-sex couples in the U.S. who reported their status. It found that 780,000 couples were willing to be counted.

Unfortunately, the accompanying press release unnecessarily contains a bit of misleading language about that finding. "Unfortunately," because it is a sad fact that some journalists on deadline will use the press release rather than the study itself as the basis for their news story. What the study itself always carefully stipulates as couples "reporting themselves," seems sometimes to be treated in the press release as a finding about the actual number of gay couples.

For example, the release says the report "document(s) a gay demographic explosion in some of the country's most politically and socially conservative regions." I suspect that most of these gay couples were already there. They just decided to acknowledge their existence. So the "explosion" is in self-reporting, not their existence.

The release also says, "The number of same-sex couples in the U.S. has quadrupled since 1990." Actually, the number has "quintupled" (145,000 to 780,000). That's minor. More important is that the language of the release implies that this is now the actual number of gay couples in the U.S.

That would be nonsense, of course. Nobody believes that there were only 145,000 gay couples in 1990, only 600,000 in 2000, and only 780,000 in 2006. Clearly only a fraction of gay couples were willing to acknowledge their existence in the 1990 and 2000 censuses and a somewhat larger fraction were willing to acknowledge their existence in the 2006 ACS.

So what this study is actually finding is an increase in gay couples' openness, not the actual number of gay couples, which remains unknown. To be sure, the release goes on to quote study author Gary Gates saying exactly that: "(M)ore same-sex couples are willing to identify themselves as such on government surveys like the ACS." Fine! But why not say that in the first place and avoid the misleading statement?

So how many gay couples are there really? Two million? Three million? Four million? No one knows. As social tolerance and acceptance increase, the number of gay couples reporting themselves-and perhaps the number of gays forming couples and living together-is bound to increase with each census and ACS report. You want a complete guess? I'd guess there are 2.5 million to 3 million gay couples. Check back in a few years and we'll see if I'm right.

However that may be, most laymen, if not the researchers themselves, seize on these current numbers of open gay couples, just as they seize on the latest survey of the number of self-acknowledged gays, and treat the results as a finding about the actual number, not openness, forgetting that the numbers keep rising.

For instance, last year's Williams Institute study noted that the government's 2002 National Survey of Family Growth asked its sample of more than 12,000 men and women aged 18-44 about their sexual orientation. The survey found that 4.1 percent said they were gay, lesbian, or bisexual. But here is Gates writing in his 2005 Gay and Lesbian Atlas based on the 2000 census: "(T)hese calculations suggest that gay men and lesbians represent 2 to 3 percent of the U.S. population."

And here is the 1994 Social Organization of Sexuality by Edward O. Laumann, et al.: "Altogether, 2.8 percent of the men and 1.4 percent of the women reported some level of homosexual (or bisexual) identity." They should have acknowledged that, of course, the actual number is undoubtedly much higher. But everyone wants to seem definitive.

So if this time the ACS finds that 4.1 percent of the population acknowledge being gay, in five years it will probably be 4.7 percent of the population, and in 2015 it will likely be 5.3 percent, and continuing upward. What is the actual percentage? Six percent? Seven percent? Eight percent? No one knows. All I ask is for demographers to acknowledge that they are not measuring the total gay population, only the current degree of openness of that population. Is that so hard to do?

My partner Mark and I introduced "Bob" and "Jim" at a dinner party at our place. Bob, 31, is recently out of the closet, and Jim, 27, just returned to the U.S. after living overseas for four years. We weren't trying to play matchmaker when we invited them, though the idea occurred to me as the party approached, and we rearranged the seating right before dinner to maximize their interaction.

That was two weeks ago. They've been inseparable since.

Young love is delightful, amusing, and-let's admit it-occasionally annoying. Delightful, because it reminds us of the simple joys in life. Amusing, because it makes grown people act like kids. Annoying for the same reason.

"Giddy as a schoolgirl," Mark reported after he had lunch with Jim later that week. "Ditto," I confirmed after checking in with Bob. To be candid, I was a tad envious. Having been out of the closet for two decades and in a wonderful relationship for six years, I am grateful for many gifts. Giddiness, however, seems like a bygone luxury.

Don't get me wrong: I wouldn't trade what I have. It even has its giddy moments from time to time. And I'm certainly thrilled for my young friends. Yet I know I'm not alone in feeling a tinge of jealously in the face of young romance.

I discussed this feeling with some friends who just celebrated their 10th anniversary. "Oh yeah, I know what you mean," one answered. "The most romantic thing we ever do anymore is share a flush." He was joking, of course, but the joke pointed to a deeper truth. Married life carries with it mundane rituals, the familiarity of which provides comfort. But this comfort comes at the cost of suspense, and thus a measure of excitement.

Part of the reason Bob and Jim are so giddy right now is that they mutually wonder "Does he really like me?" and then thrill at every affirmative indication. How joyous to expose oneself to another and have the risk rewarded with tenderness.

I don't wonder anymore whether Mark really likes me. I know he loves me, and vice-versa. A cynic would say that we're "taking each other for granted," and in one sense, that's true: part of the value of marriage is the knowledge that someone is there for you, always. With mutual commitment comes mutual security.

The danger of security, however, is complacency. It starts in small ways, many of them innocuous. If a person loves you "warts and all," then you don't feel the need to hide your warts, whatever form they take. Your unsightly back hair. Your stinky morning-breath. Your flatulence. Then there are the personality flaws you took pains to suppress during the courtship: your short temper, your constant tardiness, your fondness for Celine Dion. Soon, you don't even bother to conceal your vices, much less suppress them. You get lazy.

And thus you lose one of the great virtues of relationships: they encourage us to be better people. Initially, because we want to impress the other. Eventually, because we know they deserve it.

So as much as I envy Bob and Jim's honeymoon phase, I also take a lesson from it. Mark deserves my effort at least as much as Jim and Bob deserve each other's, as easy as it is to forget that in practice.

The good news is that ordinary things-done consistently over time-can make a big impact. Clearing the dishes even though it's his turn. Bringing home some of his favorite chocolates. Calling just to say hello. These events form the warp and weft of our relationships, our lives. I'm reminded of them every time our enemies try to reduce homosexuality to a "lifestyle." Loving someone is not a "lifestyle."

Similarly dismissive is our opponents' tendency to refer to "what homosexuals do in bed."

"My partner and I have been together over 25 years," an older gay friend recently remarked. "We do what most older couples do in bed. We sleep." He meant it as a punch-line, but it's no joke: sleeping with someone-not just next to someone, but with someone, for a quarter century-is an intimate and beautiful thing, morning-breath notwithstanding.

In this sense, it's good to "take someone for granted." That doesn't mean you stop valuing them. On the contrary, you learn that valuing goes beyond passive appreciation: it's an active commitment. You learn that love is not (or not merely) what you feel; it's what you do. You do it even when it feels mundane, which-if you're lucky-it eventually sometimes will.

John Corvino's "What's Morally Wrong with Homosexuality?" is now available on DVD.

On November 7, the House of Representatives passed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). The vote was 235-184, with 35 Republicans in favor and 25 Democrats against. It's the first time either house of Congress has ever passed a gay civil-rights bill. There are many people to thank for this accomplishment.

Some Senate Republicans are predicting ENDA has a good chance of passing early in the new year, assuming it's not expanded. The bill would then go to President Bush, whose spokesperson told the New York Times that the White House will examine changes made to the bill before a final decision is made about whether to sign it.

Only seven Democrats voted "no" because the bill did not include "gender identity," a provision that would have protected transsexuals and cross-dressers from employment discrimination. Six of those seven came from the New York City area. The vote thus exposed the political irrelevance of the United ENDA coalition of activist groups that tried to defeat the bill. They don't represent most gay people and don't have any sway in Congress.

The 35 Republicans supporting ENDA -- almost 20 percent of the Republican caucus -- more than made up for the Democratic defections and were critical to House passage. These Republicans mostly came from districts outside the traditionally conservative South.

However it comes out this session, the fact that the bill has passed even a single house of Congress is a sign of tremendous political progress for gay Americans. ENDA is the product of decades of work by gay advocates whose efforts once seemed quixotic. In 1974, Bella Abzug's original gay civil rights bill had only four co-sponsors and was completely ignored. Painfully slow political progress was then made in each session of Congress.

Now a strong majority of the House is on record in an actual recorded vote supporting the bill. This record can be used to reinforce their resolve should ENDA need to be reintroduced after the next election in 2009. The vote creates political momentum for eventual enactment.

Little noticed in the run-up to the House vote was the Labor Committee report that accompanied the bill. The report was prepared by attorneys who work for the committee.

In the committee report, there are a couple of passages relevant to the recent controversy over adding gender identity to the bill. The report notes that ENDA forbids discrimination based on "actual or perceived sexual orientation." Thus, says the report, "ENDA creates a cause of action for any individual - whether actually homosexual or heterosexual - who is discriminated against because that individual is 'perceived' as homosexual due to the fact that the individual does not conform to the sex or gender stereotypes associated with the individual's sex."

This interpretation of ENDA offers some protection to those employees -- including transgendered people -- whose gender nonconformity leads others to assume they're gay or lesbian and then suffer discrimination on that basis.

Additionally, the report puts to rest any fears that stripping gender identity from the bill would lead federal courts to conclude that Congress meant to reverse or weaken the protection already given to effeminate men and masculine women under Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, a 1989 case in which the Supreme Court held that sex stereotyping violates federal law.

The report concludes that Section 15 of ENDA "[p]reserves provisions in other Federal, state, or local laws that currently provide protection from discrimination. For example, Congress does not intend to overrule, displace, or in any other way affect any U.S. Supreme Court or other federal court opinion that has interpreted Title VII in such a way that protects individuals who are discriminated against because they do not conform to sex or gender stereotypes."

This sort of legislative report does not dispose of controversies over the meaning of legislation. But it does offer a reasonable and persuasive interpretation of the bill that will likely play a role in future litigation. The committee legal counsel who worked on this report anticipated many of the objections to ENDA from President Bush's advisors and from transgender and gay activists. They did an extraordinary job walking the fine line between an interpretation of ENDA that is unduly crabbed and one that is objectionably expansive.

Lots of other people deserve credit for passing ENDA, including gay activists (many long dead) and their heterosexual allies, law professors, lawyers, members of Congress and their staffs, and bloggers and commentators who refused to be cowed by the falsehood that "the community" opposed the bill. But one person in recent history, more than anyone else, is responsible for this historic and precedent-setting vote.

That person is Barney Frank. I disagree with Frank about many things. But without his work over the years, without his determination, without his eloquence and parliamentary skill, without his willingness to stand up to critics on his left and his right, and without his pragmatic understanding of the nature of incremental progress in civil rights, there would be no ENDA in any form. Period.

Thanks to Barney Frank we have taken one huge step closer to the day when all gay Americans -- especially the millions of them in the South, Midwest, and Mountain West who currently have no employment protection -- can live their lives without the debilitating fear and devastating consequences of losing their jobs because of whom they love.