Via GetReligion, a writer asks why religion is not part of the official census.
The Census Bureau prepared for the 1960 survey by testing out a question on religious affiliation. The bureau’s director at the time thought a religion question would not violate church-state separation or be any more offensive or intrusive than asking about a person’s level of education. However, concerns about privacy and opposition from certain religious groups kept the question off the 1960 Census.
By 1976, a different bureau director said such a question “would appear to infringe upon the traditional separation of church and state” and, legality aside, he feared “controversy on this very sensitive issue could affect public cooperation.”
It’s not just tradition. The old obsolete “constitution” was clear on this subject. The census was meant to assign legislative districts by population. The obsolete document also said that federal employees can’t be hired or fired by a religious test. If the census included religion, districts and thus employees WOULD be assigned on a religious basis.
The change from 1960 to 1976 is more interesting. In 1960 the census director felt that people trusted his agency, and he was probably right. We were prosperous and secure, so people saw the government as benign.
1975 was the inflection point of Deepstate’s coup. Preparation started in 1946, and Nixon consummated the shift from a partly feedback-based system to a total lunatic tyranny. No more prosperity, no more security, no more representation, no more truth. Just endless war and insane commands and poverty and slaughter. Enrich the rich and kill the poor.
The census director in 1976 recognized that trust was obsolete, though he may not have understood the reason.
Polistra's Mill 