A new report from the Williams Institute shows that legalizing same-sex marriage in Illinois could bring as much as $103 million in new spending to the state’s economy within the first three years, including $66 million in just the first year. This estimate is based on how many same-sex couples will marry and the tourism from their visiting friends and family. It does not include out-of-state couples who may also come to the state to wed. State and local coffers could expect to bring in an additional $8.5 million in tax revenue over the first three years.

A new report from the Williams Institute paints a compelling picture of the nation’s same-sex couples, as well as the LGBT people in general who have had children. Not only are they particular prevalent, but they are also ethnically diverse. Unfortunately, many are struggling economically, contrary to stereotype.

Here are some of the compelling new data points:

LGBT Parents

• Over a third (37 percent) of LGBT-identified adults have had a child at some time in their lives.
• An estimated 3 million LGBT Americans have had a child and as many as 6 million Americans have an LGBT parent.

Same-Sex Parents

• Nearly half (48 percent) of all LGBT female couples and 20 percent of LGBT male couples under the age of 50 are raising children.
• More than 125,000 same-sex couple households (19 percent) are raising over 220,000 children under the age of 18.
• Same-sex couples who consider themselves to be spouses are twice as likely (31 percent) to be raising children compared to unmarried same-sex partners (14 percent).
• Same-sex couples are four times more likely to be raising adopted children compared to opposite-sex couples, raising more than 22,000 adopted children.

Diversity and Income

• About 39 percent of individuals in same-sex couples raising children are people of color (compared to 36 percent among opposite-sex couples).
• Half of all children living with same-sex couples are non-White (compared to 41 percent among opposite-sex couples.)
• Single LGBT adults raising children are three times more likely than similar non-LGBT people to report household incomes near the poverty threshold.
• Same-sex couples living in two-adult households with children are twice as likely to report household incomes near the poverty threshold compared to similar non-LGBT people.
• The median annual household income of same-sex couples with children is significantly lower than that of similar opposite-sex couples ($63,900 versus $74,000, respectively).

These results actually confirm that what conservatives claim about marriage applies to same-sex couples equally. Marriage is an important framework with key economic benefits that specifically support children. With helpful research like this made available, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for opponents of LGBT equality to claim that same-sex families are not already a significant reality.

Gallup has conducted an expansive survey in an attempt to determine how many people openly identify as a member of the LGBT community across the United States. While the difference between specific states was not particularly significant, research Gary Gates points out that the findings do show that states with more protections for LGBT people tend to have more out LGBT people:

In general, states where residents express more liberal views are more accepting of LGBT individuals, while socially conservative areas are less accepting. Of the 10 states and D.C. where at least 4% of respondents identified as LGBT, seven are among the most liberal states in the country. Conversely, six of 10 states with the lowest percentage of LGBT-identified adults are among the top 10 conservative states in the country.

The states with proportionally larger LGBT populations generally have supportive LGBT legal climates. With the exception of South Dakota, all of the states that have LGBT populations of at least 4% have laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and allow same-sex couples to marry, enter into a civil union, or register as domestic partners. Of the 10 states with the lowest percentage of LGBT adults, only Iowa has such laws.

With demographics, it’s always important to keep in mind that the number represents something very specific: the number of people who are willing to disclose their identity to an anonymous pollster. It doesn’t represent the number of people who are actually gay but don’t want to tell a pollster, who don’t yet know that they’re gay, who deny that they’re gay, or who don’t identify as gay but do engage in same-sex behavior.

Still, these numbers are telling. The health benefits of coming out are well documented, so in an indirect way, these results show that having laws that protect LGBT people not only protect them from discrimination, but support their mental health and well-being. Indeed, the value of such positive climates is arguably a more compelling conclusion from this study than the demographics themselves.

Here’s how the states ranked in terms of how many people identified as LGBT:
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As many as 40 percent of homeless youth identify as LGBT, and a new Williams Institute study of youth shelters confirms this estimate. Between October 2011 and March 2012, 354 agencies completed surveys about their clients and found that about 40 percent of their homeless and non-homeless clients were LGBT (9 percent of whom identified as bisexual). About 30 percent of clients using housing-related services (like emergency shelter and transitional living programs) were LGBT.

What was particularly disconcerting about this study was how evident family rejection contributed to this disproportionate number of homeless LGBT youth:

Of all the agencies’ LGBT homeless clients, 68 percent have experienced family rejection and more than half (54 percent) experienced abuse in their family. Fortunately, nearly 80 percent of the service providers who work with clients under the age of 18 are doing family acceptance-related work, though only about half of providers working with older youth offer such resources.

The largest barriers to doing more work to reduce LGBT youth homelessness were insufficient state funding, insufficient local funding, and insufficient federal funding.

This data demands that more be done to support these agencies, but important than treating the symptom is treating the problem itself. Family rejection is devastating the lives of young people across the country, and very few organizations outside the Family Acceptance Project are addressing this issue. It’s all too easy to see LGBT homeless youth as an invisible population, but there is a very visible onslaught of anti-gay and anti-trans propaganda specifically targeting parents to raise their fears of the LGBT community. Rather than protecting children, the anti-gay efforts led by conservative evangelical Christians may very well be causing the exact kinds of child abuse that they blame LGBT people for.

One of conservatives’ primary objections to marriage equality is their belief that children receive some sort of unique benefit from having both a mother and a father. Both Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio justified their opposition to same-sex marriage this week with just that point. Groups like the Focus on the Family and the National Organization for Marriage fraudulently conflate research on single-mom households with two-mom households, implying that both are equally problematic for children because both are “fatherless.” Plenty of evidence has shown that the children of lesbian couples are perfectly well-adjusted, and a new study suggests that there is, in fact, no unique benefit to having a male role model.

The Williams Institute worked with the adolescents from the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLFFS) to compare those who had a male role model (such as the biological father, an uncle, or a grandfather) with those who did not. (Note: Conservatives attack the NLFFS for being a convenience sample, but when it started in 1980, identifying openly as a lesbian couple raising children was hardly convenient.) The study found that neither boys nor girls differed in their psychological well-being or stereotypical gender roles regardless of whether or not they had a male role model. Researchers suggest this compromises the myth that fathers and sons and mothers and daughters have some sort of unique gender-specific connection:

The results of the current study raise several broader questions about the role of parents in the gender development of their children. Given that the adolescent boys with and without male role models did not differ in their masculine gender role traits, this finding challenges the notion that there are gender-specific behaviors that can be imparted only by mothers to daughters and by fathers to sons. The finding that the adolescent offspring of planned lesbian families do not vary in their gender role traits based on the presence of a meaningful male role model also suggests that parenting role behaviors may have shifted.

In many cultures, parental role behavior is now less constricted by gender than ever before. Many of today’s fathers braid their children’s hair, prepare family meals, and supervise homework, while contemporary mothers coach their children in sports and help them with their science projects and career choices. Parents of both genders foster integrity, inquisitiveness, compassion, kindness, thoughtfulness, morality, and motivation in their children. Likewise, the ability to love, nurture, groom, teach, inspire, and guide children from infancy to adulthood is shared by mothers and fathers alike. Most of the NLLFS mothers consider good role modeling more a matter of character than gender.

In other words, parents’ commitment is what matters, not their gender. There is nothing “ideal” about having both a mother and a father, because the roles that mothers and fathers play is interchangeable. What all studies have shown — even those that conservatives manipulate to oppose same-sex marriage and adoption — is that having a stable home with committed parents is what makes the difference for children. Any conclusion drawn to attack same-sex couples is supported only by anti-gay bias, not any of the actual data available.

Our guest blogger is Crosby Burns, Research Associate for LGBT Progress.

Today the Center for American Progress, the Human Rights Campaign, and the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law released a comprehensive database of research documenting the immediate need for federal policies that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. This database includes nearly 40 documents totaling 680 pages of research from the ACLU, the Center for American Progress, the Human Rights Campaign, the National Center for Transgender Equality, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Freedom To Work, and the Williams Institute.

The findings of the research contained in this database are consistent and conclusive: LGBT workplace discrimination is a pervasive and persistent problem that requires an immediate solution. Additionally, this research establishes a strong business case for workplace nondiscrimination laws and policies, examines the potential impact of an LGBT nondiscrimination executive order for federal contractors, and highlights strong public and voter support for workplace fairness.

Given these realities, Congress should pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and President Obama should sign an executive order requiring federal contractors to have LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination policies. These actions would bring quick relief to the hundreds of thousands of LGBT workers who face employment discrimination in our country today.