The Gay Bailout

U.S. brokerages and banks are collapsing; panic is bubbling. Experts bemoan the lack of liquidity in our financial system, worsening by the day as consumers tighten the grip on their wallets. What fix is guaranteed to help? There's an easy answer close at hand: Encourage more same-sex marriages!

Cash-strapped California, which legalized marriage equality in June, is already reaping a multimillion dollar windfall. Within three years, one UCLA Law School study predicts, we will see direct spending of more than $370 million on same-sex weddings. Another study forecasts $683.6 million to be spent by local and out-of-state couples. While fears of depression grip California's tourist sector, the one bright spot is related to--you guessed it--same-sex weddings.

I'm doing my part. Carole and I will marry on November 1, our 27th anniversary. I estimate we will inject more than $20,000 into both the state and national economies: locally, we'll foot the bill for an extravagant wedding cake (with yes, two bride toppers), caterer, music, flowers, stunning gold wedding bands, plus hotel for our son and grandkids. Other relatives and East Coast friends (and one from Australia) will spend nearly $10,000 on plane tickets, then pull out the plastic for car rentals, hotels, taxis, and food once they get here.

Many same-sex couples are making similar decisions about how to spend their money. When our lesbian neighbors down the block married last month, instead of going on an international vacation this year, they chose to (expensively) landscape their yard for the wedding party.

Half of all same-sex couples living in California are expected to marry within three years. We have enormous pent-up demand, most of us are two-earner couples, and we're willing to pull out stashed-away money for this historic occasion.

If your state has fallen into recession--and whose hasn't?--there is one obvious way to pull in revenue. If you're worried about your 401K and wondering how to prop up consumer spending, be patriotic: change your laws and beg us to immigrate to your state. Forget stimulus checks: they're too paltry to make much of a difference. Just let same-sex couples marry--your homegrown ones and those from other states--and you'll be floating in cash.

So let the wedding bells ring! Allow love to show its radiant face, shining all over your state.

Don't you wish Carole and I were plunking down $20,000 in your town?

Comments

[sydneyismyalias]

Congratulations. I agree that with the legalization of gay marriage in California and now Connecticut, it will help certain areas of the economy. Wedding gifts, expenditures on the ceremony, guests visiting spending money locally and so on. It would be nice to eventually marry in my own state, only time will tell if that will ever happen.

[Jane Devin - Huffpost Blogger]

Congratulations! While I don't know if marriage is any sort of answer to the current economic assault, I do think California and other states are making strides toward social equality, and it's a total thrill for me. I didn't know, really, that I'd live to see the day. I'm stubbornly single, but who knows? Maybe now that I can, I'll want to. :-)

[secretgaygentman]

Gays to the rescue again ... hooray for us!

As a writer on the business aspects of GLBT travel, I can tell you that same-sex marriage is just about the only bright spot on the horizon right now. Spending is down, cancellations are up, and travel agents are hurting. Thank goodness for California (and now Connecticut)!

As we noted several days ago on www.travelgaygent.com, "Wedding travelers would appear more likely than most to seek out expert help in planning a perfect, once-in-a-lifetime trip. For even the most tech-savvy couples, point-and-click hardly seems like the recipe for marital bliss."

So here's a plea to any same-sex couples out there planning to tie the knot -- or enjoy a honeymoon -- in California: Please, support the community by using a gay travel pro to help with your bookings and other arrangements. Do you really want to leave the most important trip of your life up to Orbitz or Expedia?

[hypnotoad72]

Best of luck. In my new personal profiles, I specify I am only interested in building a relationship.

So far, all the e-mails I get are from people twice my age wanting a one night stand.

Which is why I left the "scene" in the first place.

Maybe I'm kidding myself in thinking people had changed and men really want more than forgetting people have souls and that risking getting a disease is more fun.

Or maybe I'm reminding myself of what is simply the truth; no stereotype necessary.

I really am happy for you and Carol. When anyone finds real love, it's a great thing. It's not as much "fleeting" as it is "rare". But even I don't think it is a "joke". Yet.

But I consider myself lucky I have "feelings" for women too.

Maybe it's karma and I shouldn't have put up the new ads. Which are the same as the old ones before I left anyway.

I haven't kept track of lesbians, but for homosexual men, this "gold mine" seems to be made of iron pyrite.