Constitutionally, the Census was just meant to collect population figures for the purpose of apportionment. Anything else is not only unconstitutional, but dangerous. It was detailed Census data about the ethnicity of families which enabled the government to put Japanese-Americans and German-Americans into internment camps. This information is ripe for misuse and overreaching by the government. I only provide the Census with the number of adults in the household.

Next time we end up with some Bible-thumping administration straight out of 'A Handmaid's Tale,' you're going to be glad that the government doesn't have a list of the gay families.

We've been over this. Religious precedent has no place in determining the laws of this country (which is not to say that some of our laws don't share philosophical grounding with some religious law). It is unconstitutional for the law to give preference to any religious tradition.

If religious tradition is a legitimate factor in determining our civil laws, then how do you justify enshrining yours, which looks down on same sex partnership, over mine, which does not?

Not counting gays or gay households simply makes certain amount of information unavailable for future use--not simply policymaking, but also understanding what the situation actually is. Do we have to rely on hearsay when trying to guess what the current distribution of sexual orientations is? Or on sampling studies, instead of a real total count?

Of course there are problems in obtaining the information (people who don't admit that they're gay still abound). But there are similar problems about establishing the truth of the information gathered in the census for other categories as well. And this very fact can be taken into account when interpreting the results.

What really looks sad is that the information is simply not being gathered. Many people in France are sorry that no racial/religious information is gathered in their census ('égalité'...). Or is it the case (as likelife said) that the information is gathered -- i.e. people will be asked about their sexual orientation and whether their household is gay or not -- but just not displayed in the final published results?

Well for one part of the basis our democracy is that minorities have a voice to avoid the 'tyranny of the majority' so I'm afraid you have to listen to that 10% of the country when they say that they would like their rights. Lots of awful things have years of cultural, legal and religious precedent. I sincerely hope for example that we don't have to return to slavery, authoritarian government in the form of an emperor or monarch with enforced state religion, women as the submissive property of their husbands, or public executions just because they have historical precedent or make an appearance in the bible. I suppose we could all start living like the Duggars, but I for one think that many 'traditions' are over rated and an easy excuse to continue injustice.

As for the census, I get the reasons that they aren't allowed to count legally married gay couples, it's a stupid reason but I get that they are following the rules as they are, it does however throw into sharp relief how idiotic and hypocritical it is to try and say that something should be decided 'by the states' and then pass federal laws to essentially render their decisions moot. Fine, if you want to pussy foot around the issue and not take a hard stand and risk angering some voters, let the states decide for themselves who is married and who is not but the federal government has to honor the decisions that those states make even when they disagree with the decision.

Maybe the census should stop counting mormon, catholic and evangelical marriages too.

Really. My mom worked for the census. It only takes into account that which is federally recognized. Gay marriages are not federally recognized, therefore they logically can't be taken into account.

As for getting federal funding, as long as the information is retained, even if not in the official report, it will be tabulated and available for funding decision purposes (my mom had to take down a lot of this informatin, including sexual orientation and access to certain services, which was never published in reports but used in healthcare funding debates in CT)

What this article doesn't mention is that the Census isn't *allowed* to report gay marriages because of the Defense of Marriage Act. In fact, the Census Bureau doesn't have a whole lot of autonomy about what kinds of data it collects -- it collects what Congress requires it to collect (otherwise Congress won't fund it). So, blame Congress!

But thanks anyhow, fightthetheocracy.

This unscores the importance of DOMA. DOMA has been accepted law for over ten years, and was signed by all the usual "important" liberals like Bill Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, etc. I'd be awfully surprised if it was just overturned, for no grounds except appeasing gay activists...for one thing, DOMA is very important to the more conservative "Republicans for Obama" section of the country, the voters that put him over the top.

In any event, the President has no authority to simply "unwrite" ten years of accepted legal precedent. If DOMA is discarded, it would be because the present Supreme Court -- loaded to the gills with ultra conservatives like Scalia, Roberts and Thomas -- would actually A. hear the case and B. decide against it. Do not hold your breath waiting for that one.

I however, would prefer that the census did count same sex households, with and without children. I think then we'd have some hard numbers rather than "wish fulfillment" and see what a very, very tiny percentage of the population it is, and that we should not overturn thousands of years of history, social custom, yes even religious precedent, as well as culture, which tell us that marriage is solely a relationship between male and female.

Why was it that LGBT people overwhelmingly voted for Obama? Wasn't he supposed to make our lives better, or at least not prepetuate anti-gay policies of the federal government?

But more importantly, if anyone can tell me, what can we do about this?