Since 1996, when Pennsylvania became one of the early states to adopt a defense-of-marriage act, marriage for same-sex couples has been illegal, and there is an ongoing effort to harden the ban by amending the state constitution.
In May, State Sen. Daryl Metcalfe (R., Butler) made the most recent attempt. After introducing his bill to the judiciary committee, Metcalfe said, "The institution of traditional marriage has never been under greater attack."
Most observers say his bill has little chance of passage, but then, neither does House Bill 300, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity or expression as protected classes under the commonwealth's nondiscrimination law.
The stalemate continues as new census data show a significant increase of same-sex couples living in Pennsylvania and as polls indicate a shift in public attitudes. More than half of all Americans now favor legal recognition of gay and lesbian couples.
"There is fairly compelling data that the number of same-sex couples is increasing at rates two to three times that of the general population," said Gary Gates, a demographer with the Williams Institute, a think tank that focuses on LGBT issues at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The most recent statistics from the census found that Pennsylvania has 33,602 same-sex couples and that in Philadelphia such couples make up 10.62 out of every 1,000 households, with higher percentages in some suburbs such as New Hope.
In his analysis, Gates found that urban areas still have the most same-sex couples. But as a percentage of the population, they constitute even greater concentrations in several suburbs and rural communities. Like heterosexuals, same-sex couples move out of the city to raise children or retire comfortably.
