2010 Census Will Not Recognize Same-Sex Marriage Responses.

[terrya]

Yet one more reason why DOMA should be repealed. Now we can't even be counted in the census. Ridiculous.

2010 Census Will Not Recognize Same-Sex Marriage Responses

The U.S. Census Bureau will actively edit the responses of same-sex couples on the 2010 Census, classifying all legally married same-sex couples as ‘unmarried partners.’

“We are just showing the data published in a way that is consistent with the way every other agency publishes their data,” Martin O’Connell, chief of the Census Bureau’s Fertility and Family Statistics Branch, told the San Jose Mercury News Sunday.

The Census Bureau will be operating under the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which “instructs all federal agencies only to recognize opposite-sex marriages for the purposes of enacting any agency programs.” According to O’Connell, the Bureau has not encountered any federal agency that tracks data on legally married same-sex couples.

Reached for comment by The Advocate, Gary Gates, senior research fellow at UCLA’s Williams Institute, believes that this situation “demonstrates an unintended consequence of the Defense of Marriage Act.” The Census Bureau, which enjoys a “well-deserved reputation as the gold standard of data collection,” now finds itself “forced to change legal and accurate responses to inaccurate responses,” Gates said.

http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid57638.asp

[BeeBee]

1. I am legally married to my husband.

I will not mark "unmarried partners" on the census.

[Toasterlad]

2. Unfortunately, It's Not Up to You.

You can put down whatever you want, but they're going to change it to "unmarried partners".

[Karl_Bonner_1982]

3. Can't you just put "I'm married"?

Do they actually ask you the name and gender of your spouse in order to screen out gay couples? Or do they perform some kind of background check? Seriously you have to wonder about this.

[Ms. Toad]

5. Form requires the designation of one member of the

household as person 1 (or something similar). Statistical information is filled in for person 1 (including gender). Each subsequent person in the household declares how they are related to person 1 (plus providing statistical information).

If person 1 and person 2 are the same gender and indicate their relationship is spouse, the census bureau workers will change "spouse" to "unmarried partners" (or whatever the designated phrase is in 2010.

[Karl_Bonner_1982]

4. Could we litigate to fix this?

Make a legal claim that the Census Bureau is falsifying data and thus betraying its fundamental mission of existence?

[Ms. Toad]

6. Based on DOMA

the Census Bureau, because it is a Federal Agency, cannot recognize same gender marriages because DOMA makes it against the law. I happen to believe that federal law is unconstitutional - but that has not been tested yet.

Although the Census Bureau cannot count our marriages as marriages without qualification, I don't believe DOMA prevents accurate counting of state marriages that are not eligible for federal recognition. They have apparently chosen not to bother creating another relationship box or two (state marriage and civil union - or even legally related under state law)

[Meeker Morgan]

7. Do you REALLY want to be officially 'gay' on the census?

Think about it.

The alleged purpose of the census is to determine the population for congressional apportionment. Anything else is mischief.

It was ethnic data on the 1940 census that made it easy to round up the Japanese-Americans in California.

[seaj11]

8. so gays should...

be afraid to be honest about who they are on a form?

[Meeker Morgan]

10. No that's not what I'm saying

I'm out all the way to friends family and neighbors, but I don't want to be flagged in a government database.

It's not like the Japanese Americans were in the closet in any sense, but the census data sure made it easy to find them when the time came.

Why does the census need to know anything other than what district I live in?

Your trust in all possible future governments is touching. NOT!

[seaj11]

9. right...

let's just pretend gays don't exist! no seriously, i get why they're doing this...but the census' "gold standard" is now declining