Census Bureau Encouraging Lies

The census wackiness continues, and I am beginning to think that the census bureau may be totally without one person who has a brain or a education, and I am not kidding. Not only has the census bureau displayed amazing ignorance by confusing ethnic background with race, it is now reaching out to the gay community and telling them that they should check "married" if they consider themselves "married," not only if they are married according to the state law where they live.

That is nuts. The census is supposed to be answered truthfully. Encouraging one identifiable group to lie and and telling them that is okay to lie certainly sends a bizarre message to the citizenry. It is particularly bizarre because only states regulate marriage and not the federal government. It also treats one identifiable group differently than other identifiable groups, which has traditionally been viewed as not the American way, as in no-way.

Is the census bureau instructing renegade Mormons in the outback of Utah to declare all their wives? No. How is that any different from what they are telling the gay community? Both gays and rural Mormons might consider themselves married to people who state law says they can't be married to, but have you heard of similar outreach measures in Utah? Of course not.

It also is strange that the census bureau hasn't instructed man-woman couples to mark "married," if they consider themselves so. Here and there I have run into plenty of man-woman couples who "consider themselves married," (or at least the woman does, the man being possibly less than interested in marrying the woman) but that doesn't mean the couple is married any more than the gay couples are who are not married to each other are, or the old-fashioned Mormons, or that couple down the block who have been shacking up for years.