July 12, 2008
(Institutionalized Homophobia + Taxation Without Representation) X DoMA = U.S. Census Bureau
Have you ever wondered what “institutionalized homophobia” really means?
This is the perfect example.
Have you ever wondered what “taxation without representation” really means? This is the perfect example.
Another day, another reminder of how much we mean to our government (hint: one less than zero) — while the government extorts us by way of federal income tax every year:
U.S. Census Bureau won’t count same-sex marriages Tens of thousands of same-sex couples are expected to marry legally in California by 2010, if a constitutional ban on gay marriage doesn’t pass at the polls in November.
But no matter what the voters decide, the official government count of the number of married same-sex couples in California is not in doubt. It will be zero.
The U.S. Census Bureau, reacting to the federal Defense of Marriage Act and other mandates, plans to edit the 2010 census responses of same-sex couples who marry legally in California, Massachusetts or any other state. They will be reported as “unmarried partners,” rather than married spouses, in census tabulations — a policy that will likely draw the ire of gay rights groups.
The Census Bureau followed the same procedure for the 2000 census, and it does not plan to change in 2010 even though courts in Massachusetts and now California have ruled gay men and lesbians can marry lawfully.
“This has been a question we’ve been looking at for quite a long time,” said Martin O’Connell, chief of the Census Bureau’s Fertility and Family Statistics Branch. “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.”
The Census Bureau is not falsifying people’s responses, O’Connell said, because the bureau will retain people’s original census responses.
“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.” …
If a respondent refers to a person of the same gender as their “husband/wife” on the 2010 census form, the Census Bureau will automatically assign them to the “unmarried partner” category. Legally married same-sex couples will be indistinguishable in census data from those who chose “unmarried partner” to describe their relationship.
Critics say the census plan will mask the records of legal, same-sex, married couples and therefore degrade the quality of the government’s demographic data. …
More at the link.
I’d refuse to answer the fracking census at all, but it’s illegal not to respond (did you know that?).
Filed under: Marriage, United States
