2010 Census Will 1) Cost Taxpayers Millions, 2) Collect No Data on Gays
STATE SPONSORED INVISIBILITY — “No matter the legal fate of Proposition 8, the 2010 Census will not count same-sex marriages or ask respondents about their sexual orientation. The federal Defense of Marriage Act signed in 1996 by President Bill Clinton does not recognize gay unions sanctioned by states. Census takers will ask same-sex couples who live together to define themselves as ‘unmarried partners, as they did in 2000 before some states – currently only Connecticut and Massachusetts – allowed gay marriage.” [CCT]
That’s a rediculous interpretation of DOMA. Just because DOMA doesn’t allow the Federal government to recognize same-sex marriages in the states, that simply means that no Federal rights are extended to people in those marriages — but it doesn’t mean that the Feds should pretend they don’t exist. Just collect the freakin’ data!
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That’s just silly and ignorant. What are you paying those fools for? Their job is supposed to be collecting information, not censorship.
Canada has been collecting data on same-sex couples since 2001 (though not on orientation).
It is still not entirely fair and accurate, however:
http://www.egale.ca/index.asp?item=1308
And while there have not been questions in the census, Statistics Canada has done surveys on orientation:
http://www.evangelicalfellowsh.....px?pid=577
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Sorry… the 2001 Census:
http://www12.statcan.ca/englis.....canada.cfm
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Okay, I get that the law prevents asking about gay marriage, but why aren’t they asking whether someone is gay or straight or not? To me, this would start to get a sense of how many gays live in the U.S. Or do they ask this already? Or (based on the post about religon) is all this lumped under invasion of privacy?
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No one has yet commented on how the spokesperson uses the same hypocritical reasoning as anti-marriage people: “This is all about the numbers. This not about lifestyle or anything else,” says U.S. Census spokeswoman Cynthia Endo.
BULL.
If it were not about “lifestyle” then you wouldn’t ask ANYONE if they were married or single.
I hate how for straight people, holding hands is holding hands, and for us it’s dirty sex. For straight people marriage is a status, for us it’s a “lifestyle”.
SCREW YOU CYNTHIA ENDO.
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@Sebbe:
Actually I think they do, though I may be wrong. There’s religious information here that supposedly comes from your census bureau:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.....ted_States
And I know we collect it in Canada:
http://www40.statcan.gc.ca/l01.....0a-eng.htm
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@strumpetwindsock – That is the impression I am getting. They do annual surveys and publications and maybe that is where the religious data comes from. But the important ones that are done every ten years maybe they don’t ask about religion. I was living abroad in 2000 and that would have been the first one I would have been 18 to fill out so I’m not sure.
The real purpose of the census is to determine representation in the United States Congress from population figures. Although, it is not its purpose, it does make sense, or would make sense to gather as much data as possible demographically speaking. Of course the more data they ask for the more people that will not participate due to fear of privacy issues. It is already a concern as illegal immigrants are expected to participate and we don’t want to scare them from not as we would have inaccurate information of who is living where.
Wasn’t there a time period decades ago when the FBI was found to have been using private personal data from the census?
I guess my overall point is, if they are not asking about religion, they sure as hell are not going to ask about sexual orientation.
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Since the GLBTQ population is forced to remain unmarried under cival law in most states and are forced to remain invisible in the 2010 Census I think we should start a movement for all to simply boycot the 2010 census altogether. Comments?
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@Non person – Boycotts do not really work when it comes to government census. The census will still go on as required by law. The only result will be that we are not counted as part of the population and will loose representation in the United States House of Representatives. One could argue that lgbt reside in larger numbers in “blue states”, so the net result could be that many “red states” could gain a greater control of the congress.
Projected loosers as of now are: Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and California.
Projected gainers of representatives are: Texas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah. Included above Texas is expected to gain 4 representatives. FOUR.
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The Bureau thought itself absolutely revolutionary when in the 2000 decennial they asked the “unmarried partners” question. And that did allow the extrapolation that there are same sex couples in every single county in America. Not sure about actual numbers, however.
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Regarding Obama, a self serving second-hander looter, who has never produced anything and has no skills except to further power of government for his fellow looters. He is gifted at getting support form the useful idiots though.
Sabastian Curry
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Yesterday you gave us a lecture about Bates at NPR and her right to journalistic freedom; today you misspell a common word in your headline. Nice.