WASHINGTON — After a decade of higher visibility and flocking to suburban and rural areas, same-sex couples live in nearly every U.S. county, data from the 2000 U.S. Census shows.
An analysis underwritten by the Human Rights Campaign, a prominent gay rights group, found that all but 22 of the nation’s 3,141 counties registered at least one same-sex couple on census forms.
Census figures show a 300 percent increase in the number of same-sex couples since the 1990 census. Nearly 1.2 million people live in same-sex partner homes across the country, the Associated Press reported.
Despite the larger number, the new figures account for only one-half of 1 percent of the nation’s 105.5 million homes.
The population count found more lesbian couples than in 1990 and also found that lesbian couples are more likely than gay male couples to live in suburban or rural areas.
The Washington Post reported that the highest increase in registered same-sex couples are in the rural states of Idaho, Wyoming and South Dakota.
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