But she found acceptance - "only nice people" - and today is comfortable being open about her "two-moms family."

"Yeah, we get looked at but we look at people, too," said Bowser, 27, who has been with partner Summer Bowser for six years. "It is becoming more open for people and people are more comfortable."

That's what the Williams Institute, based at the University of California at Los Angeles, concludes in a new "census snapshot" that provides a demographic and economic profile of Utah's same-sex couples.

Using 2005 Census data, the institute projects there were 53,832 gay, lesbian or bisexual people in Utah.

The institute, in UCLA's School of Law, estimates there were 4,307 same-sex couples in Utah - an increase of nearly a thousand from the 2000 Census. It attributes that increase to a growing willingness to disclose partnerships on government surveys.

Christine Johnson, one of Utah's two openly lesbian legislators, adds another factor: Political activism among lesbian, gay, transgendered and bisexual residents that followed passage of Amendment 3 in 2004. The constitutional amendment banned same-sex marriage in Utah.

"The changing dynamic and increased number of LGTB families in the area has a direct correlation to the constitutional amendment," Johnson said. "A lot of families came out and decided to be proactive in supporting nontraditional families."

The community is gearing up for a new political fight in the 2008 legislative session, which begins Monday. The goal: to get adoption restrictions on cohabitating couples, including same-sex couples, lifted. Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck, D-Salt Lake City, has agreed to sponsor the bill, said Keri Jones, manager of programs administration at Equality Utah.

Utah, which adopted the ban in 2000, is one of three states with the prohibition.

"I'm very optimistic," said Jones. "We are ready to run it over and over and over again until it happens."

The Williams Institute found that 19 percent of Utah's same-sex couples are raising children together. It estimates the number of children at 1,226.

When Merrilee and Summer Bowser's relationship began, they knew just one lesbian couple with children - but even that single example gave them hope that having a family was possible.

"A lightbulb went off that said: We can be lesbians, and we can have kids," said Merrilee Bowser, 30, who runs home-based day care. "We both came from big Mormon families with lots of kids, and we wanted to have children."

They have one son, 3 1/2 year old Camden, and hope to add two more.

Johnson said that Utah is a great place for same-sex couples to raise children - provided they "reside in a tolerant community, and within Utah, Salt Lake City is one of the most tolerant cities, in addition to Moab and Park City."

Karen Blanchard and partner Janice Park have been together 10 years and are raising three children - Sydney, 3, and Cameron and Spencer, 18-month-old twins - in Riverton.

"We blend in," said Blanchard, 33, who stays home with the kids while Park works. "We've been really accepted and left alone. Most people like to be politically correct."

The Williams Institute found same-sex couples in every county, from one couple each in Wayne and Daggett counties to 1,964 in Salt Lake County.

"We have great friends and family and doctors, and everybody we have come in contact with is very nice to our family," said Merrilee Bowser, who lives in South Salt Lake. "Everybody knows Cam has two moms and that is just how our family is."

brooke@sltrib.com