Just a few salient facts are known about the Americans whose lives might be changed by a Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage expected this summer.
About 1 in 5 gay and lesbian couples are raising children that are under age 18. Same-sex couples are less likely than traditional married couples to have health insurance covering them both. One in 10 men with a male partner or spouse is a military veteran. As many as 6 million Americans, roughly 2 percent of the population, have a parent who is lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
These nuggets of demographic insight into same-sex couples were contained in an amicus brief filed last month in connection with two cases before the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of California's gay marriage ban and the Defense of Marriage Act. Although posed in dry, academic language, the statistics represent a remarkable step forward in what is known about the lives of lesbians and gays.