2010 Census will include same-sex couples

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The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force was on hand for today's official announcement by the U.S. Commerce Department that the U.S. Census Bureau would report married same-sex couples in the 2010 census. The Task Force played a key role in getting the U.S. Census Bureau to report the number of married same-sex couples, which has never been done before and reverses an earlier decision made under the Bush administration.

http://www.thetaskforce.org/press/releases/pr_073109

[deleriousdemocrat]

1. Good

Seems like a step in the right direction.

[Bluenorthwest]

2. Married? So they are counting folks in MA and the CA fast fasters?

Counting only married gay couples when we are legally prevented from marriage is interesting, but in no way will it count GLBT households well. It will not count mine.
And to say it 'has never been done before' well, last census there were no legal same sex unions in the whole country, so how could they have, even if they wanted to, count what was not there to count?
So I guess it is good that straight folk will see that box to check for us, but it is not good that most of us can not check that box, and are in fact prevented from doing so by the bigotry of the straight community. Sick of it.

[Meeker Morgan]

3. I don't like this. Am I being paranoid?

The constitutional purpose of the census is to apportion representation. Anything else is asking for trouble.

Being out is one thing. Being on a government database where they can pull up a list of names and addresses according to if you're gay is another.

Just ask the Japanese Americans who answered all the questions on the 1940 census.

[TokenQueer]

4. Yeah, but paranoid or not...

...just on the face of it, shouldn't married gay folk just be entered as married? Why is there a need for a separate "same-sex married" box? If you are legally married, you're legally married. This seems to undercut our whole argument for recognition of legal marriages (vs. civil unions and the like).

[ShadowLiberal]

5. They ask the questions for a variety of reasons

Censuses are done for more then redistricting and allocating electoral votes, they're also for politicians to better know who lives where when planning political events.

For example if you want to go make a speech somewhere about a bill you're proposing to help poor people, would you want to just randomly pick a spot where you think a lot of people show up even though you have no idea if there's a lot of poor people in that area? For all you know you could be blindly picking an area with a bunch of people who make over $100,000 dollars a year and very few poor people.

Census data can also help political experts & politicians in other ways, like tracking your state's changing demographics, and better knowing what the people are generally like in an area.

[Meeker Morgan]

6. Yeah I know ...

Censuses are done for more then redistricting and allocating electoral votes

It's the only reason the constitution requires it. I also said anything else is asking for trouble. I stand by that.

they're also for politicians to better know who lives where when planning political events.

Sure. Like rounding up the Japanese. Or earlier recording the number of "feeble minded". Look that one up.

Oh but a good politician might find it useful for making speeches. Please.

[ShadowLiberal]

7. I'm just saying what someone heard when calling up the census people

That's what I've heard the census people will say if you call them up and ask them about the census.

And besides, do you really think Obama would order all the gays be rounded up? In today's 24/7 media environment, and with the Internet as a tool for those who disagree with the government (see Iran), I don't think people would even put up with the government trying to jail all Muslims in the country for being Muslim, even if it was right after several new terrorist attacks done by Muslim terrorists, it would be political suicide.

[Amimnoch]

8. President Obama? No, but who will be president after him? Or the next one?

Right now, there wouldn't be much to worry about when it comes to fear of the data being used in an abusive way. However, 4, 8, 12 years from now? Political winds shift, history shows that as fact. Look what happened after 9/11. Mosques being attacked and vandalized, that had absolutely nothing at all to do with 9/11. The right political environment comes around, Repubs, and Sarah Palin type conservatives manage to gain power with the same numbers the Democrats have now, who knows how that census data collected might be abused. Let the Republicans get a round with a super majority in both houses of Congress, and a Palin type president in the oval office... having a nice consolidated list of GLBT's in the country, including their addresses, places of work, income levels.. opens a big door for abuse imho.