Job creators
by David Atkins ("thereisnospoon")
Free at last. Thank God Almighty, free at last:
From New York City to Niagara Falls, N.Y., hundreds of gay and lesbian couples across the state began marrying on Sunday — the first taking their vows just after midnight — in the culmination of a long battle in the Legislature and a new milestone for gay rights advocates seeking to legalize same-sex marriage across the nation.
In other news, I have decided to break off my engagement to my fiancee to fulfill a sudden, uncontrollable urge to marry my birds. Both of them. I look forward to a life of henpecking, but that's the price of an open mind. And it's all New York's fault.
On a more serious note, though, there is another interesting angle to the marriage equality story, and it's an economic one:
There are also a variety of same-sex wedding celebrations, some with commercial or promotional overtones, on the agenda over the next days and months.
On Monday night, three gay couples will wed onstage at the St. James Theater after the evening’s performance of the Broadway musical “Hair.” On Saturday, two dozen couples will marry in two pop-up chapels that are to be installed in Central Park. And the Fire Island Pines resort is promoting three same-sex wedding packages, one featuring a private ferry ride “complete with your own crew of drag queens.”
The argument over same-sex marriage isn't just an emotional, civil rights and religious argument. It's an economic argument, too. Marriage means increased economic benefits for same-sex couples. It means money spent on weddings. Money spent on honeymoons. Money spent on anniversaries. Money spent on divorces.
Marriage is a tool of job creation. Conservatives want to prevent gay couples from becoming job creators in this capacity. Job creators who build demand for services that serve real people in the real economy, usually delivered by small business, the real driver of economic growth.
But as we all know, there is only one kind of "job creator" a conservative cares about, and it's the kind that doesn't actually create jobs.
creative commons image courtesy Ben Gillman