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Gay-onomics and the Marriage Debate
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| Contributor | Craverguy |
| Last Edited | Craverguy Jun 04, 2009 10:06pm |
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| Category | Analysis |
| Media | Magazine - Newsweek |
| News Date | Thursday, June 4, 2009 02:10:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | The phones started ringing at the Timberholm Inn in Stowe, Vt., in April, as soon as lawmakers voted to override a gubernatorial veto and allow same-sex marriage in the state. "It doesn't go into effect till Sept. 1, but people are thinking ahead," says the inn's co-owner, Susan Barnes. "We've got two same-sex weddings booked for October." Those bookings are good news for Barnes, who says the gay-friendly inn takes in a "couple of thousand" dollars with every wedding it hosts. And they are part of the reason some same-sex-wedding advocates are now pointing out a new legalization angle: the economic payoff.
In the five years since legalizing same-sex marriage, Massachusetts has gained $111 million in spending from gay weddings, according to a new study published by UCLA's Williams Institute, which studies sexual-orientation law and public policy. "That's money buying flowers, hotels, caterers, hiring a band—all the things that go into a wedding," explains M. V. Lee Badgett, a coauthor of the study.
Typically, same-sex couples spent about $7,400 per wedding, says Badgett, an economist who is also director of UMass Amherst's Center for Public Policy & Administration, and one in 10 couples spent more than $20,000. And then there were the wedding guests: "We estimated that each same-sex couple was associated with $1,600 in hotel-occupancy tax revenue," she says.
Promises of a gay-wedding payoff are hardly new: back in 2004, a U.S. Congressional Budget Office analysis predicted that the federal government would benefit by nearly $1 billion in increased tax revenue each year if same-sex marriages were legalized in all 50 states and recognized by the federal government. |
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