How Can Gay Marriage Benefit Our Economy?

Suppose that you were only a fiscally conservative person who cared about reducing the massive amount of debt, but you were also tied down to your very conservative christian morals. I would say that, respectfully, your fiscal beliefs and moral beliefs are at odds. There are many examples of this that I could go into, but the one that is most clear is how gay marriage is actually good for the economy. In 2009 there were around 2,077,000 marriages. And in 2009 the average cost of a marriage was $19,581. This means that in 2009, at the height of the recession,

marriage was a $40,669,737,000 industry. This is a massive number that will only go up because people will spend more on weddings when the economy gets better.

So imagine that we are in a world where it was just announced, nation-wide that same sex couples could get married. This would lead to an increase in marriages and therefore more people spending money. The government gets some of this money directly from the license (typically $30 - $40 depending on the state or country) and a percentage of the cost of the wedding because of taxes. If we assume that everything is getting taxed a flat 8% tax (some places are higher some are lower), this would mean that the government is getting around $1,600 per wedding. Estimates indicate that this could mean an additional $10 million per state. If we further assume that gay marriages and account for 1% of all marriages (though it would probably be more), this could mean that there would be an additional $400 million into the economy throughout the nation. Again if people are spending more and total marriages are happening, all of these numbers goes up. This could turn out to be a big help to the government and businesses.

This may happen pretty soon. Obama has recently told the Department of Justice to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) because it violates the equal protection clause. This could mean a ripple effect through the nation with states giving full equal rights to same-sex couples. Boehner has defended DOMA basically saying that it is unconstitutional for the President to stop enforcing laws, especially those that have been on the books for 15 years. The House Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group was not bipartisan when it had a 3-2 vote (Republicans 3, Democrats 2) to litigate the defense of DOMA. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote this letter wondering how much litigation would cost and asked if it would help create jobs.

We certainly know that defending DOMA won't create jobs and will stunt economic growth.