September 2, 2011

There’s good news and bad news about Utah, which is kind of an improvement because usually there is only bad news. Keeping with tradition, the bad news first:
A 2007 survey by the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice put Utah’s reported rape rate at 63.7 per 100,000 females compared to the U.S. rate of 57.4 per 100,000 females. The survey also found that nearly one-third of Utah (still 60% Mormon) women surveyed had some type of sexual assault during their lifetimes. Surveys have shown that in many cases where family members are the perpetrators, other family members of the victim advise them not to tell authorities because they fear damage to the family image. That’s right, families are forever.

Next, the good news:
One characteristic about Salt Lake City that you may not have guessed is that it has the third-highest rate of same-sex couples among America’s mid-size cities (those with populations between 100,000 and 250,000). It even ranks in the top 10 for same-sex couples of all cities, with such well-known liberal places as Berkeley, Calif.; Cambridge, Mass.; and Madison, Wis. Salt Lake City has 17.31 same-sex couples per 1,000 households, with 1,290 such couples overall. That is more than double the national rate of 7.7. “It doesn’t surprise me,” Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker said. “I have known as mayor, and as anyone here who pays attention also knows, that we have a relatively large and active LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] community.” A series of state-by-state data releases from the 2010 census containing data on same-sex couples was recently completed, allowing national comparisons. The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law used it to rank states, counties, and cities. On the census form, a household head indicated that a second adult of the same sex is a spouse or an “unmarried partner.” The study uses census data on same-sex couple households to estimate the size of the LGBT population. That indicates about 8.5 percent of adults in Salt Lake City identify themselves as LGBT, compared with 3.8 percent of adults nationally. Among large cities with populations of more than 250,000 people, San Francisco has the highest rate of same-sex couples at 33.41 per 1,000 residents, followed by Seattle at 25.54 and Oakland, Calif., at 24.61. The proportion of households with same-sex couples in Salt Lake City is similar to that of Denver, Boston, and even Manhattan, which has 19.32 per 1,000 households. Cities like Salt Lake City, Denver, Atlanta, and Minneapolis have a “regional draw” for LGBT people who are looking to live in a more accepting city without leaving their home state or region. In the past, it was more common to move to San Francisco or New York, but now it’s easier to find a welcoming climate closer to home. Jakob Crawford, a 21-year-old gay man who lives in Salt Lake City, agrees. “Gay people in Utah come to Salt Lake City because it’s almost like an island of liberal progressives in a sea of conservative Mormon culture,” he says.