The cost of gay marriage – in dollars and cents
Provincetown, Mass. – Maghi Geary might have some peculiar advice for Californians: Gay marriage is good for business. The co-owner of Provincetown Florist has 20 to 30 weddings booked this summer, and the reason for that decent return is evident in the next customer who walks through the door – a lesbian couple from Kansas desperately in need of some carnations for their wedding.
Tuesday, the California Supreme Court made the most recent in a series of legislative and judicial decisions on gay marriage nationwide: It upheld Proposition 8, a measure that bans gay marriage in the state. But here in Massachusetts, gay marriage has been legal since 2003, and in Provincetown, more than 2,000 same-sex couples have tied the knot since then.
In some ways, this farthest fingernail of Cape Cod is emblematic of the economics of gay marriage: a big impact, but only at the margins.
Massachusetts estimates that gay marriage has added money to its coffers – but only about $37 million a year, or less than 1 percent of the annual state budget.
In the private sector, the wedding industry could grow by more than $16 billion if gay marriage were expanded to all 50 states, according to a 2004 study by Forbes magazine.
But Massachusetts’ experience suggests that money would be concentrated in cities with a significant gay population, like Provincetown. See The cost of gay marriage – in dollars and cents Christian Science Monitor
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Study: Bans on gay marriage lead to rise in HIV infections
Gay marriage bans can be tied to a rise in HIV infections, according to a new study by economists at Atlanta’s Emory University.
“In the first study of the impact of social tolerance levels toward gays in the United States on the HIV transmission rate, the researchers estimated that a constitutional ban on gay marriage raises the rate by four cases per 100,000 people,” the university announced in a press release today.
“We found the effects of tolerance for gays on HIV to be statistically significant and robust — they hold up under a range of empirical models,” said Hugo Mialon, an assistant professor of economics.
Andrew Francis, also an assistant professor of economics, cited the gay marriage debate currently sweeping the nation. See Study: Bans on gay marriage lead to rise in HIV infections
Sovo.com
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Sacha Baron Cohen: The men in his life
His latest alter ego, a gay Austrian fashionista, is already hailed as a work of genius. But can Sacha Baron Cohen ever just be himself?
Photo: Sacha Baron Cohen as the fashion journalist Brüno
They didn’t know, the Alabama National Guard. Never realised that allowing a German documentary-maker into their high-security training camp 65 miles east of Birmingham would go so wrong. They certainly couldn’t have guessed, when they agreed to let him take part in training, that this curiously effeminate man would adorn his US military uniform with a white D&G belt, or strip in front of a locker room-full of crew-cut squaddies to reveal a camouflage thong.
Ron Paul didn’t twig, either, that a TV interview that was supposed to be about Austrian economics might end in a candle-lit hotel bedroom, where a blond male journalist would proffer cheap champagne before attempting to seduce him. Never, in his wildest dreams, could the 73-year-old hero of the Republican right have envisioned that a predatory homosexual would have the gall to suddenly drop his trousers. That’s why Paul ran away shouting: “This is ENDED!”
Then there was the crowd lured to a fairground in Fort Smith, Arkansas, on the promise of one-dollar beer and “blue-collar brawling”. They expected to spend the evening watching good, old-fashioned fisticuffs. Instead, the cage-fighting took an unexpected turn when a contestant called “Straight Dave” and his opponent stopped wrestling and started, in the words of a police report, “stripping down to their underwear, kissing and rubbing” each other.
How could that crowd have guessed? How could they possibly have realised, in a town where men are men and “gay” is a form of insult, that a pair of tough-guys would start canoodling, and force them to watch? Little wonder they promptly started a riot. Whoever you happen to be, what other emotion, except extreme anger, is the natural reaction to being “punked” by Sacha Baron Cohen?
It’s been a while, now, since this ludicrously talented British comedian burst onto the scene. A decade since his character Ali G first demonstrated that you can make highly intelligent people say incredibly revealing things by asking them the stupidest questions imaginable. Three years since his Kazakhstani alter ego, Borat, toured Middle America exposing staggering levels of misogyny, anti-Semitism, and public ignorance.
But now he’s back. This summer, Baron Cohen will complete his trio of “mockumentary” films with a movie following the flamboyant exploits of Brüno, an outrageously camp fashion reporter from Klagenfurt, whose “MeinSpace” page proudly declares: “If I vas a Starbucks drink, ich vould be a tall, skinny Austrian mit a great personality und a really big brains.”
The film boasts the extended title Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt. That pretty much sums up what the film is about. Firstly, Brüno’s preposterous vanity will expose the excesses of a fashion industry (and celebrity culture) obsessed with body image and consumerism. Secondly, his overbearing homosexuality will be used as a tool to generate, expose, and thus satirise public homophobia.
See Sacha Baron Cohen: The men in his life
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Chamber to explore the economics of gay marriage
The Scarborough Community Chamber of Commerce will be discussing the potential economic effects of gay marriage Tuesday. The group, which is affiliated with the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce, will discuss a bill sponsored by Sen. Dennis Damon, D-Trenton, that would permit gay marriage, said Scarborough Chamber President Bob Nadeau.
The Portland Regional Chamber is trying to decide whether to endorse the gay marriage bill, said Chris Hall, president of the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce.
The issue came to light after The Williams Institute, a think tank affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, contacted the Portland Regional Chamber about an economic impact report that the institute is creating. Institute officials told Hall they believe passing the gay marriage law would have a $49 million positive impact to Maine, Hall said.
The report is not finalized, Hall said, but he expects to receive it within the next week.
See Chamber to explore the economics of gay marriage
KeepMEcurrent.com – Scarborough,ME,USA
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Chamber to explore the economics of gay marriage
The Scarborough Community Chamber of Commerce will be discussing the potential economic effects of gay marriage Tuesday. The group, which is affiliated with the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce, will discuss a bill sponsored by Sen. Dennis Damon, D-Trenton, that would permit gay marriage, said Scarborough Chamber President Bob Nadeau.
The Portland Regional Chamber is trying to decide whether to endorse the gay marriage bill, said Chris Hall, president of the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce.
The issue came to light after The Williams Institute, a think tank affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, contacted the Portland Regional Chamber about an economic impact report that the institute is creating. Institute officials told Hall they believe passing the gay marriage law would have a $49 million positive impact to Maine, Hall said.
The report is not finalized, Hall said, but he expects to receive it within the next week.
See Chamber to explore the economics of gay marriage
KeepMEcurrent.com – Scarborough,ME,USA
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Original source : http://gay_blog.blogspot.com/2009/02/chamber-to-ex…
