How Many Gays Marry?

The Netherlands legalized same-sex marriages in April 2001, and nearly 5,000 people (almost 2% of the entire homosexual adult population) got married that very year. Marriages among same-sex couples have steadily increased since then, with over 2,300 more people getting married in each year. By the close of 2005, not even five years after the law was passed, over 16,000 gay men and lesbians were married in the Netherlands, which is estimated to be 6.3% of the entire gay population.

The data, and the methods that I used for creating the graph below, come from this report (pdf) by the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, who have a different spin on the numbers. Their graph of these same numbers (on p. 6 of the report) is designed to fit with their spin, mine with my spin. The report is currently being discussed in these two posts by Dale Carpenter at The Volokh Conspiracy. I've made some comments there, and may make more if anyone is paying attention.