For the first time in history, gay and lesbian couples will be counted on the U.S. Census form.
The results could raise awareness about poverty levels, homeownership information and other issues present among the LGBT community.
The 2010 form is no different from the one distributed 10 years ago. But unlike in 2000, same-sex couples who identify themselves as husbands or wives will be counted as so.
“This year, the [U.S.] Census Bureau is not going to ‘unmarry’ those couples,” said Naomi Goldberg, a sexual orientation researcher at the Williams Institute, a think tank at the UCLA School of Law.
The Department of Commerce under the Obama administration finalized the change last summer when it announced the 1996 Defense Of Marriage Act would not prevent the federal government from tabulating same-sex marriage statistics in 2010 as it did in 2000 under the Bush administration.
That year, when the census did not count married same-sex couples, not one state issued same-sex marriage licenses. Since then, five states, plus the District of Columbia, legalized same-sex marriage.
Vanessa Macoy, an organizer for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Queer the Census campaign, said although the change is an improvement, the form is not detailed enough.
The main goal of the Queer the Census campaign is to add a question specific to sexual orientation to the form.
For more information about the Queer the Census campaign, visit www.queerthecensus.org.
