AKA William

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Yesterday, the White House said that it will looks for ways to include same-sex marriages in the 2010 Census:

The White House said Thursday it was seeking ways to include same-sex marriages, unions and partnerships in 2010 Census data, the second time in a week the administration has signaled a policy change of interest to the gay community.

The administration has directed the Census Bureau to determine changes needed in tabulation software to allow for same-sex marriage data to be released early in 2011 with other detailed demographic information from the decennial count. The bureau historically hasn’t released same-sex marriage data.

The Bush administration interpreted DOMA as prohibiting the release of the data. This Obama administration policy change comes as a new study finds that people in a marriage or who identify as married are pretty much identical — straight, gay, or lesbian:

Marriage — whether you are gay or straight — may be the great common denominator among American households, according to a new government study that offers a first-ever look at the nation’s same-sex couples who say they are spouses.

In the midst of the nation’s widening debate over whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, the U.S. Census Bureau has quietly completed a statistical portrait of U.S. lesbian and gay couples who describe themselves as married. With same-sex marriage likely to be legal in as many as six states by Jan. 1, the study could add another layer to the debate.

Married men and women average about 50 years old, and about four in 10 have kids living at home. The average couple pulls down a little over $90,000 a year and four in five own their home.

That demographic portrait doesn’t just fit the nation’s 56 million husband-and-wife couples. It also closely fits the roughly 340,000 households where two men call themselves husbands, or two women consider themselves wives.

I love charts. This one below lays out in a nice and neat little grid that marriage is marriage is marriage.