Census Bureau Doesn't Count Same-Sex Marriages Diversity Inc.
By Daryl C. Hannah
July 15, 2008
Many Californians applauded the state Supreme Court decision to allow
same-sex couples to marry. Hundreds more raced to have their partnerships
officially recognized by the state. But now, same-sex newlyweds in both
California and Massachusetts are facing a different battle: being counted.
The U.S. Census Bureau, reacting to the federal Defense of Marriage Act and
similar mandates, will edit responses from same-sex couples who marry legally in
California and Massachusetts for the 2010 census, changing their responses from
"married" to "unmarried partner." The move has infuriated some LGBT civil-rights
groups.
"This is not an acceptable way to count same-sex couples," says Gary Gates of
the Williams Institute, a think-tank at UCLA's law school, which tracks LGBT-related
public-policy issues. "I don't think it's appropriate to alter potentially valid
responses with limited evidence. This makes visible people invisible."
Other organizations, such as the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR),
have also expressed their dismay with the decision. "To have the federal
government disappear your marriage I'm sure will be painful and upsetting," says
Sharon Miller, legal director for NCLR. "It's shameful."
So what's really going on?
The Census Bureau defines a "family" as two or more people related by birth,
adoption or marriage. While this has traditionally been between men and women,
now that both Calif. and Mass. permit same-sex marriage, many feel this
definition will skew the numbers.
"This has been a question we've been looking at for quite a long time,"
Martin O'Connell, chief of the Census Bureau's Fertility and Family Statistics
Branch, told the San Jose Mercury News. "It's not something the bureau could
arbitrarily or casually decide to change on a whim, because our data is used by
virtually every federal agency."
While the bureau does not plan to falsify information, it will automatically
assign a respondent who refers to a person of the same gender as their
"husband/wife" on the 2010 census form to the "unmarried partner" category.
"We're not destroying data; we are keeping that data," O'Connell said. "We
are just showing the data published in a way that is consistent with the way
every other agency publishes their data."
