Around 780,000 Amercians involved in same-sex marriages: Gallup

Around 780,000 Americans are part of same-sex marriages, found a Gallup poll released Friday, just days before the U.S. Supreme Court is slated to begin considering whether same sex marriage should become legal in all U.S. states.

On April 28, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a set of cases that challenge state bans on marriage for same-sex couples in the U.S. states of Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.

This hearing comes two years after the court ruled that the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibited the federal government from recognizing the marriages of same-sex couples, was unconstitutional.

At that time, less than half of the states allowed same-sex couples to marry. Today, such marriages are legal in 37 states and in Washington D.C. This rapid legal change brought a surge in marriages among same-sex couples, Gallup noted.

The 780,000 American adults who are estimated to be married to a same-sex spouse translates into approximately 390,000 same-sex married couples in the U.S. Similarly, the estimated 1.2 million adults living in a same-sex domestic partnership translates into 600,000 domestic partnership couples.

Thus, there is a total of almost a million same-sex couples in the country, of which nearly four in 10 are married, according to Gallup.

If the Supreme Court decides same-sex couples have the right to marry, when it issues its ruling (likely in June), this means marriage for same-sex couples would become legal in all U.S. states, Gallup said.

If the answer is no, it is possible that many states that now allow same-sex couples to marry could re-institute bans. What reinstating bans on same-sex marriage might mean for currently married same-sex couples is not entirely clear, Gallup noted. Endi