Pro-family groups were encouraged this week by the announcement that the U.S. Census Bureau will not include same-sex “marriages” in its upcoming 2010 census report.

“The U.S. Census Bureau procedures used to count and tabulate relationship data are guided by and comply with legal requirements of the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, which requires all federal agencies to recognize only opposite-sex marriages for the purposes of administering federal programs,” explained Census Bureau spokesman Stephen Buckner in a statement.

“Many of these programs rely on Census Bureau statistics,” he said. According to Census Bureau officials, any respondents who mark off persons of the same gender as “husband” or “wife” on the new census form will be automatically classified as an “unmarried partner.”

Currently, the Census Bureau considers as a family “two or more people related by birth, adoption or marriage.”

Jennifer Kerns, a communications director for ProtectMarriage.com, which is behind the ballot initiative to restore traditional marriage in California, was thrilled to see a federal institution backing the sanctity of marriage.

“The way that the federal government looks at it is the way that the law says it should be in California,” she said in a statement.

Follow us

Jenny Tyree of Focus on the Family Action also lauded the recent development as a victory for common sense.

“The word 'marriage' has long been understood across many cultures as the cooperative union of male and female with a vital interest in the next generation,” she said in a statement.

“Thankfully, President Clinton signed the federal Defense of Marriage Act and gave the Census Bureau a clear guideline,” she concluded.

As the government agency that is responsible for the United States Census, the U.S. Census Bureau is mandated with fulfilling these obligations: the collecting of statistics about the nation, its people, and economy.

In addition to conducting a full population count every 10 years and making population estimates and projections between censuses, the Census Bureau also conducts surveys on behalf of various Federal Government and local government agencies on topics such as employment, crime, health, consumer expenditures, and housing.