More Marriage Math ...

So yesterday I posted these "fun facts to know and tell" about the percentage of Americans who live in states or jurisdictions with civil marriage:

So someone just asked me in a Facebook comment "What percentage of Americans live in states with marriage equality?"

Based on the data in this article (and including the District of Columbia) the answer is 21.97%.

If we get Minnesota it would be 23.65%.
If we get California it jumps to 35.58%

That precipitated the question "What do the percentages look like for Episcopalians?"

Now, I managed to pull off the math on the civil jurisdiction question because the data was readily available and easily computable. (To say that math is not my strong suit would be a massive understatement.)

So utilizing the "it takes a village" concept and putting the question out on the Facebook village, I very quickly got this very helpful response from David Dailey:

For each of the 100 Episcopal dioceses that are based in the United States proper (known as "domestic" dioceses), I calculated the total number of people reported in the columns "Active Baptized Members" and "Others Active in Congregation."

I assigned each diocese to one of three categories: "Allows" if the diocese is based in a state that allows same-sex marriage; "Bubble" for Minnesota and California; and "Denies" for all other states.

Considering the total number of active members (baptized and otherwise):

25.1% attend churches in jurisdictions that currently allow same-sex marriage.
4.8% attend parishes in Minnesota and California.

What all this means to me -- over and above the obvious good news that the tide is turning even faster and more powerfully than those of us who have been working for equality for lo-these-many-years could have asked for or imagined -- is that by the time the Task Force on the Study of Marriage (called for by General Convention 2012 in Resolution A050) has its first meeting at the end of July we may very well be studying the reality that at in least 30% -- AKA nearly 1/3 -- of the Episcopal Church ... same-sex marriages are not theoretical: they are incarnational.

Let those with ears to hear, listen.