Latest Civil Marriage Laws Map

With the decision today from a Montana judge, marriage licenses are now being issued in all the states within the jurisdictions of the 9th, 10th, and 4th Federal circuit courts and these appellate courts' rulings striking down same-sex marriage bans.  Same-sex couples can now marry in 35 of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia.

There's still LOTS going on:

• State officials in South Carolina, Kansas, and Montana continue to try to fight marriage legalization even as some counties in these states are issuing licenses.  In Kansas the legal situation is chaotic with the state Supreme Court allowing marriages to go forward in some counties but not clearly stating that marriage licenses must be issued statewide.
• In the 6th Circuit, a 2-1 split decision upheld marriage bans in MI, OH, KY, and TN.  This split has now been appealed to the US Supreme Court.  Based on the 6th Circuit's decision -and in spite of prior public statements by Michigan's Republican governor that the state was issuing legal marriage licenses- Michigan's Republican Attorney General is now claiming that 300 or so same-sex marriages that occurred there before a stay never legally existed.  This is a lawsuit in the making for sure.
• A Federal judge in Puerto Rico has also upheld that island territory's marriage ban and so that case will now head to the 1st Circuit where every state has same-sex marriage including Massachusetts, the first state to adopt same-sex marriage.
• Court cases also continue in the 8th, 5th, and 11th Circuits.

Save the Tatas

This quick map shows data from the CDC's 2010 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS) broken into standard deviations.  The pale gray states represent states where the percentage of women over the age of 40 reporting they have had the recommended mammogram in the past 2 years.  Gold states have better mammogram percentages.  Purple states have worse.

Massachusetts stands out as having the highest percentage of women over 40 who have had a mammogram. This much higher percentage for the Bay State likely results from the high percentage of women who have health insurance thanks to the program signed into law by Gov. Mitt Romney that has since become the model for the Affordable Care Act.

On the other extreme are the western states of Oklahoma, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana where significantly lower percentages of women have had mammograms.

Vacant Homes

The Great Recession starting in 2008 hit the housing industry hard.  New constructions plummeted.  Foreclosures skyrocketed.  Displaced former owners moved into rental property.

This map shows a snapshot from the 2010 Census of the percentage of vacant properties in each state.  So, I'm not sure how much of this pattern results from the Great Recession.  California and Nevada for instance had a large number of foreclosed properties, but the percentages of vacant housing are low there for 2010.

After looking at the Census definitions, I think this pattern is driven largely by vacation homes which are absent during parts of the year.  Note that more than a fifth of housing units are vacant in Vermont and Maine.  I suspect that beach and winter vacation homes in Florida, Myrtle Beach (SC), and Rehoboth Beach (DE) as well as summer homes in New England, Montana, and Alaska produce this pattern.  I once visited Skagway, Alaska.  I recall being told that the town had over 1000 residents in the summer but only about 100 through the winter.

And Florida Joins the Same-sex Marriage Fight

Yesterday Equality Florida, that state's leading LGBT advocacy group, filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn Florida's ban on same-sex marriage and legalize same-sex marriage in America's 4th most populous state. This means:

• 21 states with active lawsuits directly seeking to legalize same-sex marriage
• 4 states with active lawsuits related to same-sex marriage
• 17 states + DC where legal same-sex marriages are on-going and uncontested
• 1 state trying to actively ban same-sex marriage by amending its state constitution (Indiana)

It is difficult to categorize some cases as seeking to legalize marriage or only related.  In the four states with active lawsuits related to same-sex marriage, two involve couples being able to file joint state tax returns.  In Kansas a lawsuit is seeking the right of same-sex couples married in other states to file jointly on their state tax returns.  Married couples throughout the US can now file jointly on their Federal taxes.  Next door in Missouri, the governor issued a regulation allowing married same-sex couples to file jointly on their state taxes.  An anti-gay group is now suing to stop joint state tax returns in Missouri.

Wisconsin has a domestic partnership law that gives same-sex couples 44 of the 200+ state benefits of marriage.  An anti-gay group sued claiming this law runs afoul of that state's ban on same-sex marriages.  The case is proceeding there over the partnership law and not marriage.

Similarly, a Montana lawsuit is seeking all the benefits of equal civil marriage for same-sex couples but not actual marriage.