> But my analysis of a 2013 Pew Survey of LGBTQ Americans -- the latest available comprehensive national survey data on this population -- showed that LGBTQ rural residents are actually more likely to be legally married than their urban counterparts -- 24.8% compared with 18.6%. This aligns with what I’ve heard in interviews. The rural LGBTQ people I spoke with placed a high value on monogamy – on what many of them consider a “normal” life.

This is one of those cases where causality is implied but is questionable. Finding lovers in the sticks is hard enough; it is exceptionally difficult if you are queer, and that's going to influence behavior and choices in all sorts of ways, and those can be rationalized in all sorts of ways, too.

A less charged example: adults living in cities are (probably) more likely to participate in, and value participating in, team sports. Let's assume they report honestly as such on a questionnaire.

Obviously, there are more opportunities to play sports in cities, but does that imply that rural folks wouldn't partake at about the same rate if they could, even though they say that they wouldn't?

I can see plausible arguments in either direction, and for several kinds of selection and reporting biases.