Economics of gay marriage

Here's an odd article from the New York Times blogs -- I support gay marriage because I think it really is a matter of individual liberty -- but there may be economic implications too... .

The Economics of Gay Weddings

By Catherine Rampell

As a Times article on California’s new gay-marriage ban points out, gay marriage has been a boon to many California businesses. This raises an interesting question: The social issues surrounding gay marriage aside, what are its implications for local, state and national economies?

Generally speaking, same-sex weddings can present opportunities for local economic growth. Today’s story invokes the additional sales these events have brought to existing florists and bridal consultants. They have also created a niche business for some enterprising professionals and even spawned some new product lines. With a new, major life event to spend on, gay couples will spend more, creating demand for more and new bridal products and services.

You might argue that this line of argument falls into the broken window fallacy — that the money couples spend on weddings is just diverted from funds that would have been used elsewhere, so there’s no net spending increase in a local economy.

But many people go into huge debt for weddings, so it seems unlikely that gay couples would spend the budget for their wedding elsewhere in the area anyway. Perhaps the people who would have big splashy same-sex weddings would have had big splashy same-sex commitment ceremonies anyway. But this also seems unlikely to me, given the political, cultural and legal significance a marriage offers that an honorific ceremony does not. Perhaps I’m wrong, but it seems psychologically and socially easier to justify having a lavish, expensive affair for something called a “wedding” than for something called a “commitment ceremony.”

Gay-friendly towns and states are surely aware of the economic boon of gay marriage; as The Washington Post wrote back in September, businesses in Provincetown, Mass., have benefited from a surge in weddings thanks to tourists who cannot get (legally) hitched back home. The mayor of San Francisco seemed to lament the destination wedding business his state has now lost: “It’s a great day for Massachusetts,” he said in today’s Times article

Full story here:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/the-economics-of-gay-weddings/