Same-Sex Marriages Up 17 Percent in Washington Since Legalization

According to the Washington Department of Health on the one-year anniversary, the law allowing same-sex couples to marry appears to be attracting people to the state.

The law went into effect on Dec. 6, 2012, and since then some 7,071 same-sex couples have married. That is out of 42,408 total marriages. These figures are based on the most recent data that was current as of Sept. 30. The DOH released the report Thursday.

According to the Department, the counties with the most same-sex marriages are King, Clark, Pierce, Snohomish and Thurston, which accounted for 5,353. Garfield was the only county that did not report any same-sex unions. The Department says 62 percent of the marriages were women, and 24 percent of the couples are registered as living in another state.

Current same-sex marriage data for Benton and Franklin Counties was not available and has not yet been listed at the Department of Health website.