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Archiver > ROOTS > 2010-04 > 1270906715


From: Megan Zurawicz <>
Subject: Re: [ROOTS-L] 2010 US Census Redefines Marriage
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 2010 09:38:35 -0400
In-Reply-To: <14b301cad864$207a84f0$6801a8c0@piurillihome>


If you ask me, that's a political tirade, not genealogy. Come on,
seriously: You're arguing that it's going to ruin future genealogy because
<gasp> someone might make an error about whether or not Aunt Jane and Aunt
Sarah were really married to each other legally or not?

I'm sure that there are a multitude of cases dating back to the 1880 census
(the first time they told us relationships) where the relationships written
down are flat out wrong. I've seen several myself, where brothers are
"boarders", sisters are "daughters", and mothers and mothers-in-law are
continually mislabelled. It's right up there with wrong ages, wrong sex
assignments, wrong racial assignments. This isn't any different from that.
None.

I'm fairly certain that whether or not gay people said they were legally
married when they weren't in 2010 won't be an issue in 72 years; the whole
brouhaha will be looked on as we look on past comments arguing that women
and non-whites are equal humans. Either it will be "how obvious, why did it
take people so long to get that", or "glad that's over, and we're back to
the only people with any rights are straight white men; everyone else is
their property."

Either way, I don't expect to know about it. In seventy-two years I expect
to be in the next life, not this one, and I'm pretty sure folks there don't
obsess on what's happening here. :)

--pig

On 4/10/10 12:11 AM, "Pat Iurilli" <> wrote:

> Did you know that the Obama administration
<snip>


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