The U.S. Census, always seeking ways to go above and beyond its constitutional role of counting the number of people in the United States, may be planning to ask questions regarding sexual orientation in the 2020 Census community survey.
A national advisory committee has been tasked with the question of how to address hard-to-count populations, including the LGBT community:
The U.S. Census Bureau announced Friday that it is seeking advice on how to address lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender populations in implementing the once-a-decade census.
The census, which has never counted LGBT people directly, has indirectly referenced gay people through its count of same-sex married couples and “unmarried partner” households in the past.
Why not add another question in? We already have an obscenely intrusive “extension” of the census in what Daniel Freedman of the Soufan Group, writing in the Weekly Standard, referred to as “The Orwellian American Community Survey.”
It could be interesting to see just how large–or small–this population is, but the fact remains that the census is once again growing too big for its britches.
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If they ask me such a question, my answer is “nunya.”
As in nunya goddam business, pervert. >:-(
they are still waiting on our reply for 2010, and my neighbors didn’t tell them squat when they were bothered because i told them why we weren’t answering.
i took the test, scored a perfect 30, plus i had 5 preference points for being a veteran. i was never called for a j*b, yet the three women that came by the house all had lower scores than that.
i figure any process that is dishonest from the start doesn’t deserve any cooperation.
As a straight male, I just may answer “lesbian”. Then, if they won’t write that down, I’ll sue the Gummint and get me some free Gummint cheese and some a’ that you-offended-me victim money.
Would “lesbian trapped in a man’s body” count as gay or transgender?
Maybe this will be like race and we can check everything that applies.
I guess it’s too much to hope that the phrasing of the question won’t be bad enough that “yes, please” is a valid answer?
I put in my address and the number of people living there, and leave the rest blank. As they say, you can ask a question, but don’t expect an answer.
This issue, that fedgov refuses to obey the written Constitution, comes up repeatedly. The census follows the pattern.
For the 2010 Census: Name and Address Only,
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/galvin2.1.1.html
Article 1, Section 8 sets out the areas in which Congress may legislate. Health care and education, just to choose two topics of which there are hundreds, are NO WHERE to be found in the written Constitution. Yet there’s a Dept of Health and Human Services (which is huge), and a Dept of Education. Yikes!
This of course will only continue until the people read, understand and appreciate that their Constitution is a document of limitation, not one of expansion. That appreciation will ONLY come by electing to office those who really, really mean their Article VI oaths to obey the Constitution as written. No Democrat today takes that oath seriously.
It’ll be a cold day in hell when I answer a question like that.
I took census forty-odd years ago. Name, address, period. That’s all they need and that’s all they’ll get from me next time.
It used to be Republicans I thought were poking their noses into my business. My, how that worm has turned. Let us hope President Romney nips this one in the bud.
Here is my American Community Survey story.
Feb. x, 2009
Received letter announcing ACS package will arrive.
Feb. x+6, 2009
Received package – I did nothing.
March x, 2009
Got reminder postcard. – I did nothing.
March x+19, 2009
Got another package with the “You are required by U.S. law to respond to this survey.” threat. – I did nothing.
April x, 2009
Phone call, was out of house, they left message to call 888-***-****. – I did not call.
April x+4, 2009
Second phone call, I answered this one.
I told woman on the other end that I refuse to answer any of their questions as this violates my privacy rights, not to mention the Health Information Privacy Act. She then threatened me with the $5,000 fine routine.
I told her,”First of all, the CB can’t issue a fine. They’d have to go to court, and get a judge to determine the fine. The minute the CB brings this to court, I have standing in federal court to question the constitutionality of the ACS”.
She got so pissed at me she hung up.
I never heard from them again.
This is off topic, but if anyone here is from New York, there is quite an extraordinary debate going on right now between Kirsten Gillibrand and Wendy Long, the Republican candidate, on New York 1. Long has been hammering Gillibrand about the administration blaming Libya on the video.
Long is clobbering Gillibrand, but the audience is in Gillibrand’s corner.
I know of a disabled woman who apparently was sent the American Community Survey and since she rarely checks her mail, didn’t know it. A woman left cards at the door and was quite aggressive about it, then ended up talking to the caregiver, a young man who was quite clear on the limitations under HIPAA on what he was allowed to say. The woman from the Census Bureau finally told the young man that she would “fill out the rest” according to what she “know(s) about the area”. That was the end of it.
I wonder what the woman put down on the forms? Do they know their personnel do that?
Just fill out the form the way we do: Name, Address, Age. That’s it. I put “UNCONSTITUTIONAL” in big black letters over everything else. There’s been no repercussions … so far.
I suspect the American Community Survey may “test run” some of the questions about sexual orientation. After all, they ask more personal stuff than the 10-year Census as it is.
Will they exclude the NAMBLA community? What about the North American Man-Doggie Love Association Community? or the 3-way and up domestic partnership community? Or the Necrophilia Community? Or the Man-Foot Love Association Community? Or the Mommies-Adult Babies Love Community? Or the Exhibitionist Community? etc etc etc…
If they exclude any of those sick puppies they’re raaacist wierdophobes.
I also insist that they ask the question: “Are you or is any member of your household a convicted and/or registered sex offender?”
Then, they’ll have that little info-bubble that states, For more information, call for the free brochure, ‘Am I a Sex Offender?’ from the US Government Printing Office, Pueblo Colorado (toll free: 1-800-GPO-FREE).
Hot dang. Then there will be a whole ‘nuther round of spurious questionnaires by various outfits,, from hospitals to local governments. The most recent, earlier this year had like 20+ different racial groups to choose from, plus “Other” _______. I filled in “Home Erectus” ….to avoid the issue of Cro-magnon or Neanderthal under Homo Sapiens.
This time around I will endeavor to include “parthenogenic” in my racial/gender type. Hey, I worked for Army and the government….civil servants get a kick our of creative stuff. Trust me. :-))
Perhaps it would be best to invoke the 5th Amendment and refuse to testify.
Supporters of the gay, lesbian, et al groups will devise a strategy to answer positively to the survey in order that government will believe that these minorities are a much larger group than it really is. OWS will strike again.
There is an article on this issue that argues for the unconstitutionality of the ACS, contrary to court holdings about the census generally: Setting the Boundaries of the Census Clause: Normitive and Legal Concerns Regarding the American Community Survey 18 Wm. & Mary Bill of Rts. J. 1097 (2010), http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj/vol18/iss4/11
I returned my census card with my address and number of people. I was then called on three different times by three different people who wanted to look in my barn, my workshop, my smokehouse and my chicken coop for anyone who was uncounted.
It really ticked me off because several months before the census I took time to talk to a pre-census taker(!) pointing out which residences in our happy little valley were second homes owned by people who should be counted elsewhere, which were abandoned and which contained full time residents.
Since when did a census become an accounting of who’s doing what with their body parts?
I think it’s a great idea, when calling up dems, could they also ask “when are you going to get a job”
Knowing our government they will follow up the gay question with:
If you answered yes please list all of your gay children.
It’s creepy, and considering how rare homosexuality is, “LGBT” activists are probably not going to like the result.
The irony is going to be that such a census will reveal how few gays there really are in the country. As such, this will diminish the power of leftists usurping the gay movement, if not the gay movement itself.
My idea of sick humor:
What if everyone in the entire USA identified themselves as Gay or Lesbian or TG? Whoops…no more “minority” status. I am going to cite myself as Parthenogenic-Homo-Erectus , which should cover just about everything walking on two legs.
Sometimes the best way to mess with bureaucrats minds is to overload them with what they want in excess of their expectations. It ruins their formulas and spoils preconceived notions.
Some people, of course, will screw up and answer truthfully, that they are heterosexual …and they’ll be the new “minority” entitled to affirmative actions, preferences, etc. Sounds like a plan.
I’d say that they’ve taken leave of their census . . .