Massachusetts Same-Sex Households Outnumber National Average

Massachusetts has legally recognized same-sex marriage since a 2003 Supreme Judicial Court ruling in the case of Goodridge vs. Department of Public Health that it was illegal under the Massachusetts Constitution to permit only opposite-sex couples to wed.

Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to recognize marriages for same-sex couples and the sixth jurisdiction worldwide to do so, behind the Netherlands, Belgium, Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec.

Then-Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney disagreed with the SJC's decision, stating his opposition to same-sex marriage and proposing civil unions for same-sex couples instead.

There was opposition to same-sex unions in some political and religious circles and predictions that the state's pension system would go broke, people would want multiple spouses, and some might even try to marry their pets.

Of course, none of those things happened.

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According to polling, most Massachusetts residents have warmed up to the idea of same-sex marriage.

The Boston Globe, citing 2020 U.S. Census Bureau data released in May, reports "33,488, or 1.2 percent, of the state's 2.7 million households were same-sex couple households." The paper says, "That's higher than the national average."

According to the statistics cited by the Globe, "0.9 percent of households were same-sex couple households."

The state's same-sex households included 20,940 where the same-sex partners were married, according to the Census data.

The Globe piece provides a town-by-town chart and the number of same-sex households in each, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics for 2020.

Those communities include Acushnet (17), Dartmouth (51), Fairhaven (47), Fall River (198), Freetown (10), Marion (nine), Mattapoisett (16), New Bedford (205), Rochester (nine), Somerset (34), Swansea (38), Taunton (138) and Westport (34).

The Globe says, "In 2020, the Census for the first time allowed people to check boxes indicating whether they were same-sex or opposite-sex spouses or unmarried partners."