Politicos Start Demanding: Count Gays in 2010 Census
Though it’s likely to have little impact, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (who wants Bloomberg’s job some day) — who are both gay marriage supporters — began demanding the 2010 national census collect data on gays and lesbians. Too bad the Bill Clinton-supported Defense of Marriage Act prohibits the Census Bureau from counting us as anything but “unmarried partners,” or so it argues, even though we’ve now got four states where same-sex marriage is legal and a number of others who officially recognize those states’ unions. So as data collectors go door-to-door to make sure every American is counted, we’ll still remain an invisible class — because allowing us to check a “married” box would be far too difficult.
Maybe Queerty and a few other blogs could work together and organize something where we could be counted… yes? no?
Perhaps we could just refuse to participate in any aspect of the census until we are fully recognized.
Counting all the GLBTs would sure make it easier for the religious whack-jobs to “round up all the queers” for something unimaginably fun too.
@Wild Gift: That would be a great way to help Red States get more members of Congress and more votes in the Electoral College.
How can they actually prevent a person from checking the “married” box on a form? I doubt they can. They have to provide a way for person #2 in a household to indicate that he/she is married to person #1 in that same household.
They might choose not to count the checks where person #2 says he is “married” to person #1, if the two persons both indicate that they are “male”. But then, a Senator or a researcher could ask the question, “How many people checked that box, but were not counted because of that particular error?”