lifeonq.com

Gay Marriage Would Shrink Government Expenses and Grow Businesses

A new study reaffirms what many have proven:  there’s money in gay marriage.  It is a rational, pro-business argument for allowing gays and lesbians to marry.  Unfortunately, our politicians–both Republican and Democrat–long ago went deaf to reason. In advance of an anticipated January 2008 same-sex marriage debate by the Maryland legislature, the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at the UCLA School of Law has released a study showing that gay marriage would put $3.2 million in that state’s coffers every year. The money would come from savings in expenditures on means-tested public benefit programs and an increase in sales and lodging tax revenue from gay weddings and wedding-related tourism. In addition, Maryland businesses would benefit. The report finds:

…if Maryland were to extend the right to marry to same-sex couples regardless of residency status, the State would not only experience a substantial increase in wedding spending by same-sex couples residing in Maryland, but it would also see an increase in wedding and tourist spending by same-sex couples from other states. We predict that sales revenues by Maryland’s wedding and tourism-related businesses would rise by over $94 million in each of the first three years after marriage is extended to same-sex couples.

Combined with the net gain in state revenue, that comes to almost one-third of a billion dollars in Maryland pockets in just three years.

Back in April 2004, during the height of the right-wing public relations assault on queers as a strategy for the election of George Bush and a conservative majority, Republican principle was quickly abandoned.  That year, Forbes magazine estimated  that gay marriage would bring a $16.8 billion windfall to business–everything from $196.7 million for cake to $217.2 million for invitations and stationary to $1.7 billion for honeymoons.  A couple of months later, the Congressional Budget Office reported that legal gay marriage in the U.S. would reduce state and federal expenses by almost one billion dollars a year for 10 years.  Shoot, for every year queers could marry, we could afford another three or four days of the Iraq war (currently costing American taxpayers an estimated $275 million a day).

Hmmm….gay marriage reduces government expenses and is good for business.  How do pro-business, small-government Republicans reconcile abandoning their political principles just to pander for religious-right votes?