2010 Census Won't 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, 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.

The changes that will be made to Census responses will make it difficult to count married couples in states where same-sex marriages are legal, and impossible for married LGBT couples with children to be recognized as families on the Census. According to Census Bureau definitions, a "family" consists of two or more people related by birth, adoption, or marriage. “[A married LGBT person will] get counted as a single parent,” Gates said.

“It’s shameful,” Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said of the Census policy. Minter told the Mercury News, “It really is something out of Orwell.” (The Advocate)

Reader Comments

These comments are reproduced as written by visitors to this Web site. They have not been edited for content, grammar, or spelling. The viewpoints appearing here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of advocate.com, The Advocate, or its affiliates.

Name: Mike R
Date posted: 2008-07-19 12:07 AM
Hometown: Outside Philly

Comment:

Here's a thought. Rather than refuse to complete the senseless, I mean, Census, how about we intentionally skew the numbers? Report that we have 8 to 10 kids with 1 parent in the house for a gay couple, or some other ridiculous result. Census figures are statistics. If enough people provide invalid data, the results won't be valid. If they can't include us, we can make their tool useless. Oh, we have a useless tool already, it's called the president. In the meantime, I agree with Bryan, to work toward changing the laws rather than accepting the garbage they're using. “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. Perhaps Mr. O'Connell needs to recognize that "every other agency" is living in the past, and should makes efforts to be a leader, not another lemming.

Name: TwoDaddyFamily-Rob & Clay Calhoun
Date posted: 2008-07-16 6:46 PM
Hometown: Atlanta

Comment:

The Census is flat-out lying if they count a legal 2-parent family as only 1 legal “single” parent plus another adult in the home. My husband and I are legally married and we also JOINTLY adopted our two beloved children, but for the Census to pick only one of us as a legal ("single") parent plus another adult in the home, is an outright LIE! All 50 states recognize us as the 2 legal parents of our children, even in Florida, which does not allow gays to adopt, but does recognize out-of-state legal joint adoptions because of the full faith and credit clause of the US Constitution. Adoption law is UNIVERSALLY recognized; marriage is not. It's one thing if the Census switches our answer about our legal marriage as husband and husband to "unmarried partners" because of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, but it is a totally different thing if they list us as 1 “single” parent plus an adult, because we are BOTH our children's TWO LEGAL PARENTS!! That is, indeed, Orwellian!!

Name: Terre
Date posted: 2008-07-16 12:30 PM
Hometown: San Luis Obispo

Comment:

A couple of people have targeted Ms Minter without realizing the circular nature of their firing squad. Speaking of perspective and focus, let's keep it on the Census Bureau, which plans to ignore marriage and family data about citizens if they are gay. The law you say they should follow is, in fact, perfectly Orwellian. Wikipedia: The adjective Orwellian describes the situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being non-favourable to the welfare of a free-society. It connotes an attitude and a policy of control by propaganda, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past, including the "unperson" — a person whose past existence is expunged from the public record and memory, practiced by modern repressive governments.

Name: Carol Grandmont-Bodine
Date posted: 2008-07-15 9:46 AM
Hometown: Chicopee

Comment:

As an amateur genealogist who happens to be legally married (in MA) to a same-sex spouse, it breaks my heart to think that decades from now my grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and any other future researchers will look at the 2010 census entry and see us listed as single. "In accordance with law" or not, this insult (and gross inaccuracy, since marriage law resides at the state level) will remain in the census archives long after we're dead and gone - persisting even beyond the time when future generations look back at the same-sex marriage controversy and ask, "What was *that* about?" How horribly sad and unnecessary.

Name: quasi
Date posted: 2008-07-15 1:19 AM
Hometown: Davenport, FL

Comment:

If the federal government leaves marriage up to the states, and then supports the the republican-passed DOM and then changes the census data, are they not being two-faced on the topic. (yeah, I hear your disgust and nasty comments just about now.) It sure looks like a nasty lawsuit in the making to me. What about people who are asexual (born without sex organs) or those born with some or all of both? Can they legally marry anywhere? Aren't they also human, deserving of a recognized relationship. There may not be many of them, but they do exist, and I have met some of each. How do they show up on the census? There are more than just "M" or "F" in this world.

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