Census Bureau releases most detailed data ever on same-sex couples – By Leonardo Castaneda (Mercury News) / Sept 17 2020
Until 2014, same-sex married couples were instead counted as cohabitating partners
Five years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down bans on same-sex marriage, the Census Bureau has released the most detailed data ever on same-sex couples, married and unmarried, in a move welcomed by LGBTQ activists.
“Like with so many other marginalized communities, being able to have this data means so much,” said Beatriz Valenzuela, communications manager for Equity California, the state’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization. Accurate data helps government organizations and nonprofit groups better serve the unique needs of each community, she said.
The new data is part of the Census Bureau’s 2019 American Communities Survey, an annual questionnaire that asks respondents about race and ethnicity, where they work, where they live and much more. For the first time, rather than being limited to saying whether they live with a spouse or unmarried partner, respondents were able to say whether they live with a same-sex or opposite-sex spouse, or a same-sex or opposite-sex unmarried partner.
The change came about after an analysis of the 2010 census found that same-sex couples were confused about the question and answering incorrectly, making the data much less reliable. Until 2014, same-sex married couples who identified themselves as such were instead counted as cohabitating partners by the Census Bureau, a change that came more than a decade after Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in 2003.
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