A SETTLING DOWN
In the years since 2004, when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled 4-3 that same-sex marriages were protected by the state constitution, the number of gay marriages has tapered off and stabilized.
Between 2005 - after the initial crush of gay marriages - and 2013, the number of same-sex marriages has averaged nearly 2,200 each year out of the more than 35,000 weddings between opposite-sex couples that the state averaged each year during the same period. That means about 6 percent of the state's marriages each year are between same-sex couples.
Perhaps the starkest revelation in the statistics in Massachusetts is the dramatic difference between the number of marriages involving two women compared with the number of marriages involving two men.
Between 2004 and 2013, there have been nearly 16,000 weddings of two women in Massachusetts, compared with about 9,900 involving two men.
Marriage