WASHINGTON - The U.S. Census Bureau will not recognize gay marriages during the 2010 census, officials revealed last week. Instead, all gay couples will be recorded as "unmarried partners" despite the legal status of their relationships.
In addition, same-sex couples without children will not be classified as families.
A Census Bureau spokesman cited the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 as an explanation for the bureau's decision. The act mandates the federal government recognize only unions between a man and a woman as "marriages," even though same-sex couples may be married legally in Massachusetts and California.
The bureau plans to retain same-sex spouses' original responses in its records but will edit the statistics prior to official publication.
The U.S. Census is compiled every 10 years and its statistics are used to determine congressional districts and apportionment of federal funds to the states and federal agencies, among other things.
Gay and lesbian couples voiced reactions ranging from disappointment to outrage.
"The effect is just to erase our marriages and our families, really," a 45-year-old married lesbian lawyer from Sunderland, Mass., told The Washington Post. "It's like we've been Photoshopped out of the picture. How long is the federal government going to pretend we don't exist?"
Molly McKay of same-sex marriage advocacy group Marriage Equality USA, told the San Jose Mercury News, "To completely whitewash us out of existence is hurtful, discriminatory and shameful. It's like the federal government is trying to say that we don't exist. The notion that the federal government is going to come in and erase our existence is un-American."
Some members of congress say the Defense of Marriage Act is hurting American families and ought to be repealed. The lack of data about same-sex couples not only will skew the true picture of American society but also may hamper the efforts of researchers investigating issues like wage disparities and discrimination.
Out Congressman Rep. Barney Frank [D-Mass.], told The Washington Post, "Unfortunately the stupidity and unfairness of [federal] law gives [the census] something of a colorable argument. [The Defense of Marriage Act] was aimed very specifically at this. It's all the more reason to repeal it.... What is it accomplishing by not having an accurate count? It's not even good demographic policy."
The Census Bureau's policy "limits our ability to get quality information," added Gary Gates, a demographer at the UCLA School of Law and author of the Gay and Lesbian Atlas. "In 2000, the census could very legitimately make the argument that with a same-sex couple, someone couldn't [legally] be a husband or wife. And so they were making an inaccurate response accurate by changing them to an ‘unmarried partner.' The situation now is different. You are changing potentially accurate responses to inaccurate responses."
According to Gates, the Census Bureau policy will cause to be underreported the number of families in the U.S. For census purposes, families are defined as two or more people related by birth, adoption or marriage living in the same household. In addition, it will incorrectly classify children of married gay couples as children of single parents.
On the flipside, so-called "pro-family" organizations like the Family Research Council were delighted to hear about the Census Bureau's policy. The FRC even vowed to "vigorously defend" the Defense of Marriage Act against attempts to overturn it.
"We believe that marriage is intrinsically the union of a man and a woman," Peter Sprigg, vice president for policy at the FRC told The Washington Post. "The reason marriage is a public institution in the first place is that it brings together men and women for the reproduction of the human race and to encourage mothers and fathers to cooperate in raising to maturity the children produced by their union."
All models were at least 18 years old at the time of their performance. 18 U.S.C. 2257 Record-Keeping Requirements Compliance Statement.
