Out for the count

Federal rules mean thousands of same-sex marriages in Massachusetts will be ignored in the 2010 US Census

After nearly five years together, Pete Dziedzic and Jay Judas will marry in October at the Ritz-Carlton on Boston Common.

Although the ceremony will draw friends and family from across the country, and the marriage will be legally recognized by Massachusetts, it will be ignored by the US Census Bureau.

The agency plans to count Dziedzic and Judas - and the estimated 11,000 other gay and lesbian couples who have legally married in Massachusetts - as unwed partners in the 2010 Census. As a result, those couples will be excluded from all statistics about families and married couples issued by the Census Bureau.

Dziedzic, a corporate lawyer, said the decision stings. He said he and Judas, a Sun Life executive, have done what parents hope for - they worked hard, earned advanced degrees, landed good jobs, fell in love, bought a home together in South Boston's Macallen Building, and plan to marry.

"We've followed all the rules," he said. "We're going to get married, and now the federal government is saying, 'No, you're different, and when we count how many married couples there are, you don't count.' It's offensive, and it's very, very upsetting."

Even as other federal benefits remain beyond their grasp, gay and lesbian married couples are demanding the right to be counted. They say it is both a matter of personal dignity and a desire to see the Census Bureau gather accurate information.

The census decision stems from the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 federal law that keeps married gay couples in Massachusetts and elsewhere from receiving federal benefits afforded to heterosexual marriage, like the right to file taxes jointly or for an immigrant to receive a green card when marrying a citizen.

Same-sex marriage advocates say they can't understand why that law would extend to the census, because no immediate personal benefits flow from the government's count. Instead, the census exists - according to the agency's own mission statements - to provide the nation's leading source of data about population and the economy and to enable lawmakers and federal officials to make better policy decisions.

"Informed decisions require reliable, up-to-date information," the Census Bureau's own strategic plan states.

That's why same-sex marriage advocates see a double standard.

"This is such nonsense," said Arline Isaacson, cochairwoman of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus. "Their job [on the census] is not to count only those things that they wish existed and then refuse to count the rest. How can you make public policy when you don't have accurate information?"

The Defense of Marriage Act contains two main provisions: It says no state needs to recognize same-sex marriages granted in other states, and it prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage for any purpose.

Census spokesman Stephen L. Bruckner said the bureau's decision to not count same-sex marriages is squarely in compliance. The law "requires all federal agencies to recognize only opposite-sex marriages for the purpose of administering federal programs," Bruckner said in an e-mailed statement.

Dziedzic said it's one of roughly 1,200 reasons - the estimated number of federal rights, benefits, and privileges of marriage, according to the US General Accounting Office - the Defense of Marriage Act needs to be repealed.

The national presidential candidates differ on the issue of a repeal, although it has not become a high-profile issue in the campaign. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Senator Barack Obama, wants to get rid of the law. Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, voted for it in 1996 and has reaffirmed his support.

Pressure for a repeal of its provisions is expected to continue building, particularly now that gay marriage has been legalized by a May court decision in California - which, according to a 2006 Census Bureau estimate of same-sex cohabitants, had 103,000 same-sex couples, compared with 22,000 in Massachusetts.

California now offers marriage to same-sex couples from all states, and Massachusetts lawmakers are considering doing the same by repealing a 1913 law that bars out-of-state couples from marrying here if the marriage would be prohibited back home.

Representative Barney Frank opposed the act in the US House and tried to strike the second provision that affects federal benefits, but his amendment failed, 311 to 103, at the time the law passed. As long as that clause remains, Frank said, the census decision is consistent with federal law.

"I think, unfortunately, that they have a good argument with that stupid law," Frank said last week in a telephone interview.

Senator John F. Kerry, who also opposed the 1996 act, said the law is being used to abuse the census. He said the Bush administration should direct the census to collect same-sex marriage data.

"If we have an inaccurate census, how can we sensibly provide federal, state and local resources?" Kerry said in an e-mailed statement. "The census should be above political influence."

Governor Deval Patrick agrees and believes the census should count all Massachusetts marriages, a Patrick spokesman said.

As president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, Kris Mineau has consistently opposed gay marriage. Mineau said he supports the Census Bureau decision and sees no reason for it to gather same-sex marriage data.

Interested organizations "should use their own funds to determine those demographics," he said. "We're dealing with a government entity that is given certain charters and mandates, and they have to subscribe to public law."

Law or not, said Marc Solomon, executive director of the MassEquality coalition, this decision illustrates the invisibility of gay marriage to the federal government, despite the thousands of couples who have married or are poised to wed.

"It's nothing new," he said, "but it's painful nonetheless."

Frank predicted Congress would strike down the federal-recognition provision, if not all of the Defense of Marriage Act, a few years into an Obama presidency if the Illinois senator wins.

Short of that, same-sex marriage advocates said the Census Bureau could get around the law with an administrative order to count the marriages.

As it now stands, said demographer Gary J. Gates, the census will count married gay couples with children as unmarried couples and as single-parent families. It will completely exclude childless same-sex couples from data about families, a category that currently includes only parents and children, blood relatives, or heterosexual married couples under one roof, said Gates, a senior research fellow with the Williams Institute, a think tank at University of California Los Angeles School of Law that studies public policy and law related to sexual orientation.

Gates said such an inaccurate count would hurt research into an important social issue. Gathering data about same-sex married couples would shed light on whether marriage and cohabitation patterns among same-sex couples mirror those of heterosexual couples, for whom education and socioeconomic levels tend to be higher among the married set, he said. It would also show whether those couples who have married in Massachusetts, California, or Canada, have remained in states where they receive state benefits, or migrated elsewhere.

"This is one of the preeminent policy debates right now in the country," he said. "For the preeminent data collection agency to in essence hide data that could illuminate that debate, I think, is disconcerting."