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The Approach To Change

Legislation authorizing same-sex marriage, if successful, will not have happened overnight. Nor will it have happened only through the effort of those involved in homosexual relationships; studies show that less than 1% of the adult population lives in sexually active homosexual relationships.2 Instead, if legislation is enacted, it will be because supporters have worked for it and supporters of traditional marriage have permitted it to happen.

2 Table PCT14 of the 2000 U.S. Census estimates that of 1,301,670 households in Connecticut, only 7,386 (< 6/10 of 1%) are occupied by same-sex "partners." Inside and outside Connecticut, the number of individuals who actually engage in exclusively same-gender sexual activity is small. Several studies have shown that less than 1% of the overall adult population of males and females has engaged in exclusively same-gender sexual activity within the preceding five years. See Sell et al., "The Prevalence of Homosexual Behavior and Attraction in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France: Results of National Population-Based Samples," Archives of Sexual Behavior, 24 (1995): 235-48, and other studies cited in Jones and Yarhouse, Homosexuality: The Use of Scientific Research in the Church's Moral Debate, pp. 42-43 (2000; InterVarsity Press). Men who reported any sexual activity with men in the past year averaged between 1% and 2%; figures for women were substantially lower. Estimating the number of persons with homosexual orientation, whether or not they act on it, is problematical: those who experience same-gender sexual attraction do so at different levels, and there is strong disagreement about the level and frequency at which same-sex attraction constitute a "homosexual" orientation.

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