Earlier this week I wondered what was up with Brewster County, Texas — waaay down on the Mexican border, which according to the census has 8.2 same-sex couples for every 1,000 households. While that doesn’t approach the numbers you find in some of the more famously gay-friendly regions, that’s almost as high a density as Dallas County (8.7), although not quite as many as Austin (11). Why?

Texas expat @AmandaMarcotte was kind enough to tweet me her answer (in six parts):

I’m from Brewster County, TX. I can probably fill you in on why it’s become a gay couple mecca. It’s a combo of Western MYOB attitudes and that the biggest employer in the one town there, Alpine, is a university. Also, nearby Marfa, TX (Presidio County) has an art colony, and it’s had a liberalizing effect on the whole area. It was a conservative place when I lived there, but they went for Obama in 2008. It’s a good place for non-city liberals to live.

E.J. Graff writes on social-justice and human-rights issues, particularly discrimination and violence against women and children; marriage and family policy; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender lives. She is a resident scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center and the author of What Is Marriage For? The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution (Beacon Press, 1999, 2004).