The 2010 Census will include statistics about same-sex married couples, following a directive by President Obama last week.
LGBT leaders had been calling on the Obama administration for the past several months to reverse the policy of non-inclusion put forth by the Bush administration.
Last summer, then-president George Bush announced that same-sex couples who’d gotten married in either of the two states where such unions were then legal — Massachusetts and California — would not be counted as married in the census, contending that the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal ban on same-sex marriage, precluded such an action.
The administration pledged that same-sex couples who reported having a “wife” or “husband” would have that answer altered to reflect the third relational option, “unmarried partner.”
The issue did not arise in the last census, conducted in 2000, as same-sex marriage was not legal anywhere in the country at that time. Since then, however, six states have adopted marriage equality: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire, although weddings have not yet begun in the last three. Same-sex marriages were legal in California for five months last year, until the passage of Proposition 8, a ballot measure that banned such unions in the state.
Steve Jost, spokesperson for the Census Bureau, said the inclusion of same-sex couples will not necessitate any changes to census forms and will allow the country to “have a good data set on which to discuss this phenomenon that is evolving in this country.”
Jost noted that the new policy will enable the 2010 Census to provide a more accurate picture of the makeup of the country.
“This is about folks’ identity,” he said. “We are experienced in dealing with changing social phenomena and how to measure and report it, and we want to get it right.”
Rea Carey, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, called Obama’s directive a “huge win for our community.”
“Our community and allies stood up and refused to allow same-sex marriages, our families and our children to be rendered invisible in the picture of our country provided through the census,” Carey said.
Carey noted that while the census is “on its face, about numbers,” it also tells “the story of our country,” which LGBT couples and families are a part of.
In April, more than 50 bipartisan U.S. representatives issued a letter to the Office of Management and Budget, urging the agency to press for the inclusion of same-sex married couples in next year’s census.
Last week’s census announcement was not the only recent victory for same-sex couples.
On June 15, the Department of Justice notified Boston-based group Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, which is spearheading a lawsuit against DOMA, that a recent Department of State policy change allows for same-sex married couples to use their married last names on their passports. The State Department previously did not allow this practice, again citing DOMA.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].