The scene outside Cambridge City Hall as same-sex marriage becomes legal at midnight May 17, 2004. (Photo: Paul Lopez)

Finance website NerdWallet has put together a list of the most gay-friendly cities in the country based on municipal laws, community and peer support, and safety and tolerance, and Cambridge – site of the first wedding licenses issued in the first state to make it legal for same-sex couples to marry – comes in fifth.

The 88-city survey says it assessed municipal laws affecting LGBT residents by using the Human Rights Campaign’s Municipal Equality Index, which “measures the equality of each city’s non-discrimination laws, relationship recognition, employment practices, city services, law enforcement and municipality leadership”; added the percentage of same-sex households in the region from the U.S. Census; and looked at the  number of hate crimes for sexual orientation per 100,000 residents.

The write-up notes:

The People’s Republic of Cambridge has zero sexual orientation-related hate crimes in 2011, making this a safe and tolerant area for gay residents. Cambridge is the residence of gay rights activist and Senator Elizabeth Warren.

But that still puts Cambridge, with 1.1 percent of households including same-sex partners, behind Palm Springs, Calif., where a “whopping 8.6 percent of households consist of same-sex partners”; San Francisco; Seattle; and Long Beach, Calif.

January’s list of Gayest Cities in America from Advocate.com (self-proclaimed as “totally subjective and constantly changing”), meanwhile, didn’t even include Cambridge, after the city took third last year. Massachusetts was instead represented by Springfield at No. 2.

This post took significant amounts of material from a press release.