More than 150 same-sex couples got married in Kansas last year. That's out of 17,000 marriages, statewide, in 2014. The numbers come from a new report issued by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
Thomas Witt, with the group Equality Kansas, expects the number of same-sex marriages performed to rise this year. He says the marriages were only available during a short window at the end of 2014 and they weren’t available in all counties.
“There were a lot of roadblocks to people being able to get a license and get married. Just because marriages started in mid-November didn’t mean that they were available for everybody,” says Witt.
Same-sex couples accounted for less than 1 percent of the more than 17,000 total marriages, but Witt says don't discount that number.
“Given that it was only six weeks, in only a handful of counties in the middle of the holiday season, I think that’s a pretty good number,” says Witt.
The numbers come from a new report released by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Marriage statistics aren’t yet available for 2015.