Census Won't Count Some Massachusetts Couples CBS Springfield By Lesley Tanner July 18, 2008
Once every decade the U.S. Census Bureau takes a survey of the country's
population, but when the 2010 census is released, some married couples in
Massachusetts won't count.
Ellen Leuchs and Diane Curtis have been a couple since before the last census
was taken, but a lot has changed since then.
"We had a big ceremony with our family in '98 and then in 2004 we were ably
to make it legal," says Curtis.
The Sunderland couple was married less than a week after Massachusetts
legalized same-sex marriages. Their family now includes two children, with two
parents, but that's not the way the U.S. Census Bureau will see it in 2010.
"I don't want my kids reality to be inaccurately reflected," says Leuchs.
"They are a part of a two parent family, and they have siblings, and this is
their home."
Married same-sex couples in Massachusetts and California will be recorded as
unmarried partners.
"For the federal government to ask us if we're married, for us to say, 'Yes,
we're married,' and for them to change our answer to unmarried, it's dishonest,
it's keeping false statistics," says Curtis.
Census officials say the Federal Defense of Marriage Act stops them from
counting same-sex marriages. The law requires that agencies recognize only
opposite sex marriages when administering federal programs. But the Director of
UMass Amherst's Center for Public Policy and Administration, Lee Badgett, says
that law doesn't apply.
"They're not actually allocating any funds with the census data," says
Badgett. "All they are doing is reporting on what somebody else has told them."
And researchers worry that not counting legally married same-sex couples now
could hinder other states in the future.
"The numbers of couples who get married in Massachusetts and California will
be a way for other states to see what might happen," says Badgett. "And we just
won't have that information."
