Friday, June 19, 2009

Will the census count the gays?

The Wall Street Journal reports,
The White House said Thursday it was seeking ways to include same-sex marriages, unions and partnerships in 2010 Census data, the second time in a week the administration has signaled a policy change of interest to the gay community.

This would appear to be a no-brainer, but apparently, the previous administrations refused to count us. It's almost Orwellian:
The Census Bureau has long collected data on same-sex marriages when people chose to report it. White House officials said the previous administration interpreted the federal Defense of Marriage Act as prohibiting the release of the data.

Am I the only one who finds that really bizarre? They collected the data but couldn't release it?
Following procedures employed in 2000, the bureau had planned to use a computer program that recategorized spouses in same-sex marriages as unmarried partners. For the 1990 count, the bureau simply altered the gender designation of one partner.

Thus, in 1990, committed gay couples were designated straight. You know, you simply cannot make up this stuff.

Hey, census! Over here on the left coast! I'm a Gay, Married Californian!

1 comment:

Erp said...

From the sound of it in 1990 they changed the sex of one of the individuals listed.

I have this image of a historian in a 100 years time (or whenever the 2000 census date becomes public) writing a serious paper on the number of people who had two sex changes, one in the 1980's and one back in the 1990's and trying to figure out why.