SURVEY: GAY HOUSEHOLDS HEW CLOSE TO MAINSTREAM: From the Contra Costa Times

A Norman Rockwell painting they're not. But many of California's same-sex households reflect a more traditional lifestyle than is often recognized in the national debate over gay marriage, according to a San Jose Mercury News analysis of census data.

Children from diaper age to high schoolers reside in nearly a third of the state's gay and lesbian households, which also tend to be headed by partners who are better educated and slightly more affluent than married Californians.

More than half of same-sex couples own their own home. And though they can't legally marry, as many as a third have tied the knot before.

The 2000 census provides a limited snapshot of the state's gay couples because many are reluctant to divulge their relationships to the government and those who don't live together aren't counted.

But it's the most comprehensive portrait available of 103,000 same-sex couples in California and reveals an often-overlooked reality: While they comprise just a small portion of the state's residents, gay and lesbian households by many measures are squarely in the California mainstream. ...

Crowley and Rinaldi are among 29 percent of the state's same-sex households that have children under 18 at home, a relatively high proportion considering that more than half the couples are gay men who cannot bear children and face bigger hurdles adopting or gaining custody of children from previous marriages.

In contrast, slightly more than half of California's married couples and about 45 percent of heterosexual couples living together are rearing children.

Crowley shares custody of her 16-year-old daughter Laurel Cashen with her former husband. Rinaldi has a 10-year-old daughter, Rowen Rinaldi, with her former partner, who became pregnant via a sperm donor.

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