Same-sex couples tying the knot in greater numbers almost a decade after landmark ruling, new survey says, but worry courts will revoke right to marry

Even if he found love, St. James resident James Stewart never believed he would get married. It was never a matter of personal preference, but rather a matter of law.

But two years after the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges ruling in 2015 that all 50 states must allow same-sex couples to marry, Stewart married the love of his life, Jim Riepe, before 160 guests at the Nissequogue Golf Club on May 28, 2017.

"It just seemed like the natural thing to do," Riepe, 66, said of the decision to wed. "People meet and they fall in love and they get married."

Nearly a decade after the high court’s landmark ruling on June 26, 2015, more same-sex couples are tying the knot, moving from 425,357 couples nationally that year to 774,553 in 2023, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

New York legalized same-sex marriage in 2011. The number of Long Island households headed by same-sex married couples has risen steadily from 4,048 in 2019 to 5,914 in 2023, according to the American Community Survey, which began collecting local data in 2019.

Still, some LGBTQ+ couples are concerned that the constitutional right could be revoked, much like abortion protections that were once safeguarded under the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. This week, Southern Baptist delegates called for a turnaround in the Obergefell decision and a ban on same-sex unions, according to The Associated Press.

Same-sex couples thriving, survey finds

Despite those concerns, married same-sex couples tend to have higher household incomes, higher education levels, and be more likely to say "things were going very well in their relationship," according to a survey released Thursday from the Pew Research Center, citing Census Bureau data.

Love was the highest cited reason why 90% of same-sex couples decided to get hitched, according to the survey, which received responses from more than 1,000 same-sex couples who were either married or living together. After that, 72% of married same-sex couples cited companionship as the reason for getting married.

Gay married couples had a median income of $172,689, according to the survey. Straight couples had a median salary of $121,100, while lesbian married couples earned slightly more with a median salary of $121,900.

Roughly 40% of gay and lesbian married couples held a bachelor's degree compared with 32% for straight couples, according to the survey.

While Obergefell v. Hodges was certainly a "win" for gay people who wanted to get married, its impact has been "a paradox" with regards to progress for the entire LGBTQ community, said Matt Brim, a professor of queer studies at the College of Staten Island and the executive director of The Center for LGBTQ Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan.

"The downside is that the gay marriage debate took up almost all the air in the room for gay progress," Brim said. He added that when the national conversation focuses on "one single issue," like gay marriage more than a decade ago, "all other issues that are still important to LGBT people," including the visibility and rights of trans and nonbinary people, "get put on the back burner."

Brim said he does not think "marriage makes anyone happier," whether they are in a same-sex or straight-sex relationship, but there are key reasons for couples to formalize their relationship.

By both appeasing their parents and other relatives as well as mirroring "the same model of family," Brim said LGBTQ couples can reap both "family awards" through inheritance and the same social, legal and institutional "rewards as couples who are heteronormative."

Matt Johnson, a psychology professor at Binghamton University who researches the development of marital discord and divorce, noted that happily married couples also experience benefits such as improved mental and physical health.

The Obergefell decision, he said, might have extended some of those benefits to same-sex married couples. He said the decision might have also reduced relationship stress caused by discrimination, as more people become welcoming of same-sex marriages.

"So I think that decision probably alleviated some of the discrimination that's out there, and that probably means that there's a little bit less stress for same-sex couples," Johnson said in a phone interview.

Delays in nuptials

Anya Flannery and Kerrie O’Neill celebrate the day they got married, Sept. 7, 2013, as well as the day they started dating, Nov. 11, 2008, because they feel it honors lost time when they were denied the right to formalize their relationship. They began living together about six months after they started dating, and would have started planning their nuptials around the same time.

"I want my relationship to be recognized for when I wanted to marry and couldn’t," O’Neill said, adding that the couple wanted to take advantage of the federal and state rights, responsibilities and protections for married couples.

"I wanted that, everything from tax benefits to inheritance and also hospital visitation and access to health insurance," O’Neill said. "I want those rights and the responsibilities that come with it."

For Flannery and O’Neill, marking 10 years since Obergefell v. Hodges is "kind of bittersweet," O’Neill said.

While O’Neill said she did not encounter couples feeling pressured to say "I do" once they could legally marry, she heard of many who felt pressured to share their vows in recent years out of fear they could lose the chance.

"With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, many couples were scared that the same thing was going to happen to marriage equality," O’Neill said.

Marriage offers advantages over cohabitation, including joint tax filing and health insurance coverage. Of the gay married men the Pew Research Center surveyed, 32% pointed to financial sense as a reason for tying the knot, while 70% noted legal rights and benefits, and 87% said love.

However, for some couples, like Riepe and Stewart, 61, the decades-long barrier to marriage meant postponing having children.

According to the Pew Research Center, 10% of married gay men are raising children, compared with 31% of married lesbians and 53% of married heterosexual couples.

Adopting kids "probably would have been something that we both would have wanted if we had gotten married earlier," Riepe said, adding that he and Stewart were in their 50s when they wed.

"We met at the right time for ourselves, but not necessarily the right time to start a family," he said. The couple enjoys visits from their many nieces and nephews and Prince Archie Waffle, their rescued pit bull.

O’Neill, a longtime social worker and the LGBT Network’s chief program officer who oversees the nonprofit's clinicians — who, among other clients, counsel LGBTQ couples — said a myriad of concerns could explain the gaps in raising children, including the fact that straight-sex couples can have unplanned pregnancies.

In vitro fertilization is an option for lesbians but not for gay men, O’Neill added, but the process of adopting or finding a surrogate mother is a lengthy, arduous route "before we even consider societal barriers."

Love brought them together

On most weekends, Ian and Adam Siegel can be found at The Shoppe by Trubee Hill in Glen Cove. The Glen Cove's couple's store sells Blue Hydrangea, New Day and other scented candles, along with a host of other items.

The couple’s business is thriving, they say, just as their marriage is. The two met after Ian Siegel saw his husband recreating a scene from "The Real Housewives of New York City" in a video posted on Facebook, and eventually met at a group hangout. In 2019, the couple eloped and shared their nuptials on Facebook.

Since getting married, the couple said they’ve been welcomed into the community. The two don’t have children, but they can still be found at a recent elementary school fundraiser. The shop has also introduced them to new people.

Although they are concerned about the rhetoric against gay marriage, they say it will not dampen the love they have for each other.

"It doesn’t take away anything that I have with Adam," Ian Siegel, 50, said. "It really doesn’t. It only takes away the legal and tax benefits, whatever they are."

Adam, who turned 44 on Friday, added that they don’t take their marriage for granted.

"I never thought when I was a young, gay kid that I'd ever be able to get married, and the fact that I am, it's amazing. And look, nothing bad has happened," he chuckled.

Rachel Lavoie met her future wife, Nicole, on the OkCupid dating app.

They had different interests — Nicole Lavoie was a Mets fan and Rachel wasn’t into sports — but they soon connected on a deeper level.

"We're just looking for somebody I can trust, somebody who has the same values, and we felt secure in that with each other pretty quickly," Rachel Lavoie said in a phone interview.

The Floral Park couple got married in 2011, just after the state legalized the unions.

Rachel Lavoie said being married has increased her sense of stability and security in the relationship. Her wife makes more money, which made her feel more secure in buying a house. And when they decided to have children, she said she was able to be on her wife’s insurance for maternity care. The couple has two children, ages 6 and 10.

But knowing how marriage has been a positive in her life, she said that she has some concerns about the possible end of same-sex marriage on the federal level, despite state protections.

"Just because we're safe, I still worry about the people who are just now embarking on, you know, creating families and ... how this can impact them," she said.

Newsday's Arielle Martinez contributed to this story.