Petrelis Files

HRC v PFAW: Census Bureau Battle Over
Gay Couples' Stats

Thanks to the mainstream corporate media, I learned this week of the Census Bureau, a branch of the Department of Commerce, decision to not count gay and lesbian married couples from California and Massachusetts in the 2010 census for the nation. Legally hitched same-sex couples from those states will instead be classified as "unmarried, same-sex partners."

From the AP wire story:

The agency's director, Steven Murdock, said in an interview Thursday that the 1996 federal law "has that effect, in terms of being a federal agency. We are restricted by it."

The Census Bureau does not ask people about their sexual orientation, but it does ask about their relationships to the head of the household. Many gay couples are listed in census figures as unmarried, same-sex partners, though it is an imperfect tally of all gay couples.

Murdock said the bureau will strive to count same-sex couples in the 2010 census, just as it has in the past. But those people who say they are married will be reclassified as unmarried, same-sex partners.

Same-sex couples with no children will not be classified as families, according the bureau's policy. Those with children who are related to the head of the household will be classified as families.

Since this is without question a federal issue, I figured America's largest Democratic gay political organization, the Human Rights Campaign, would, in response to the outrageous statistical manipulation by a federal agency, at the very least, express some anger in a statement from the group's leader, Joe Solmonese. Maybe even tell us how HRC's has worked with the census bureau leaders over the decades HRC has been in business, and what they've done lately to persuade the federal effort responsible for honestly counting lots of things to do with gay Americans.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Googling the terms Solmonese, census bureau, gays, returned zero number of hits. And the HRC blog wrote nothing this week on the misguided census bureau leader's decision, and certainly no news about HRC's attempt to mobilize the community and our allies to reverse the census bureau's plans. Other than blandly noting what the press was reporting in the Equally Speaking podcast, did HRC actually do anything of substance on this matter?

However, another advocacy outfit in Washington, People For the American Way, at the end of the week, put out a take-charge "we're not gonna take this" release, and also announced launching a petition drive targeting the bureau:

The Census Bureau reported this week that in completing the 2010 Census, it will ‘edit’ the data from same-sex couples who accurately report that they are legally married, and that it will instead re-classify them as “unmarried partners,” the same procedure used by the Bureau during the 2000 census, when no states yet recognized same-sex couples as legally married. That kind of “editing” undermines the Bureau’s mission to provide accurate and high quality data about the U.S. population, and according to a paper on the Bureau’s own website, creates a distorted picture of same-sex households . . .

The paper, “Unbinding the Ties: Edit Effects of Marital Status on Same Gender Couples,” was written in 1999 by two members of the Census Bureau’s Fertility and Family Statistics Branch, Population Division. The authors looked at data from the 2000 Census “dress rehearsal,” and drew the following conclusions about the effects of “editing” the responses of same-sex couples from “married” to “unmarried partners”:

“it is clear from the examination of [the] unedited data that households which are identified as ‘married couple’ same gender households are a distinct group from households which are identified as unmarried partner same gender households. By combining these households . . . we [that is, the Census Bureau] are distorting the picture for both of these groups of households.”

And that was before there were same-sex couples recognized in any states as legally married — continuing to “edit” out married gay and lesbian couples in the next Census would create an even greater distortion.

People For the American Way has launched a petition urging the Census Bureau to reverse its policy.

So many words on our behalf from PFAW, in comparison to this from Solmonese and HRC:
"_________________, said Solmonese on behalf of HRC's members.

I'm not a big backer of online petitions and rarely sign them, but in this instance, I broke my standard policy of resisting putting my name on petitions. All because I want to show support for PFAW and how it took action, while the HRC remained silent and organized no effort to change census bureau policies for the benefit of gay Americans.

Maybe HRC didn't receive any marching orders this week from Howard Deans and other Democratic Party bosses on all this, and that's their excuse for inaction.

Regardless of HRC sitting on its hands, if you're interested in signing the PFAW petition, go here.