The U.S. Census Bureau has admitted that it overestimated the number of households with same-sex couples in its 2010 Census report. In a press release, the bureau announced that, according to its revised estimates, there were approximately 131,729 same-sex “married” couples in the United States, and around 514,735 same-sex unmarried partners. The new estimate was revised down from the original “summary file count” of an improbable 349,377 homosexual “married couple” households and 552,620 same-sex unmarried partner households.
Census Bureau officials explained that the original count, released during the summer, was incorrect because of an “inconsistency in responses … that artificially inflated the number of same-sex couples.” The discrepancy supposedly occurred when Census respondents checked incorrect boxes concerning their relationship to the householder.
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“Statistics on same-sex couple households are derived from two questions” on Census forms, explained the bureau: “relationship to householder and the sex of each person. When data were captured for these two questions on the 2010 Census door-to-door form, the wrong box may have been checked for the sex of a small percentage of opposite-sex spouses and unmarried partners. Because the population of opposite-sex married couples is large and the population of same-sex married couples in particular is small, an error of this type artificially inflates the number of same-sex married partners.”
Even with the drastically reduced figures (themselves most likely still too high), the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force used the announcement as an opportunity to rejoice that 2010 marked “the first time the Census Bureau tracked information about same-sex spouses.” The group’s director, Rea Carey, declared that the data on homosexuals represented another step in “erasing the invisibility” of homosexual couples in society. “No longer are our marriages rendered invisible in the snapshot of our country provided through the census,” she said. “And no longer can anyone ignore the presence of our relationships all across the country.”
But Matt Barber, head of the pro-family Liberty Council, warned that the Census Bureau’s inclusion of homosexual households, both “married” and otherwise, in its count, is one more effort to normalize a destructive lifestyle, and to dismantle existing laws against same-sex marriage. “This is another attempted chip-away at the Defense of Marriage Act and to gain full federal sanctioning and government recognition of counterfeit same-sex marriage,” he said.
Barber charged the bureau with complicity in promoting a “sexual anarchist agenda,” reported OneNewsNow.com. “It’s really shameful that the United States Census Bureau was complicit in, if not violating the letter of the law, at least very much violating the spirit of the law,” Barber said.
Homosexual “marriage” is now legally recognized in the District of Columbia and six states: New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Iowa, and Connecticut. By contrast, at least 30 states have passed state constitutional amendments defining marriage as only between a man and a woman.
As reported by The New American, the Obama administration has taken a lead role in paving the way for full recognition of homosexual “marriage,” beginning with his February 2011 order that the Department of Justice stop defending the constitutionality of DOMA in federal lawsuits. In response to the White House move, Republican lawmakers have vowed to defend DOMA.
In July, The New American reported that the Senate Judiciary Committee held a day of emotional hearings on DOMA that pitted homosexual activists lobbying for its demise against pro-family leaders explaining the importance of the measure in defending traditional families. Homosexual activists are pushing to replace DOMA with the Respect for Marriage Act of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), which would clear the way for complete legalization of homosexual “marriage” across the nation.
