Gay marriage is a sure fire way to stimulate our economy. Estimates by the Urban Institute have the number of GLBT’s (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transvestite) over 18 year of age in America at around 5% of the population or approximately 15 million. For effect, we’ll cut that down to 10 million. Of those 10 million let’s say that, 6 million are in committed long term relationships and that they would love to get married. That would equate to 3 million weddings.

According to Wedding Report, the average cost of a wedding in 2007 came to $28,732. Let’s drop it to $15,000 due to the recession. Forbes Magazine states that the 2006 average cost of a honeymoon was approximately $5,000; let’s drop that to $3,000. People Magazine estimates the average engagement and wedding ring packages come to about $2,000. Let’s keep that the same since two women in a wedding may include two fancy rings (my wife’s ring is far fancier than my own).

Of course, for all I know, gay men may want fancy rings too. As such, we will not lower this number at all. I presume that you can see where I am going at this point. If you calculate the current numbers I’ve presented, gay marriage has generated $45 billion just for the wedding, another $9 billion for the honeymoons, and $6 billion for wedding and engagement rings. That brings the starting total GDP generated by gay marriage to $60 billion.

We also need to add in various bridal/wedding showers, bachelor and bachelorette parties, plane flights, car rentals, and hotel stays for guests and, if they are not cheap bastards, tips for the servers/bartenders at the wedding where the guests will presumably be drinking free booze. Oh and let us not forget that these weddings would create jobs and the people put to work would also spend money and further stimulate the economy. When all is said and done, I think we could safely say that we could get about $65 billion dollars in stimulus. That’s a pretty healthy chunk of money. Heck, we could even say I am only half right and we would get nearly $33 billion or even if I were only 10% correct we would still get $6.5 billion. It seems impossible to ignore.  Gay marriage will stimulate the economy. In fact, the marriages are just the start…

Once GLBT marriage is made possible, these same couples might even be able to adopt or foster a child with the full support of the state and the community around them. With nearly 500,000 children in foster care or orphaned (of which over 100,000 are ready for adoption) in the U.S. this could only further improve society. Plus I am sure that these new parents, foster or otherwise, would spend more on their new children than the state does when they have custody of them. This would further stimulate the economy in the short term and the long term because these kids would get a decent upbringing so they would probably not join the cradle to prison pipeline. Instead, they would hopefully go to college or, at least, graduate high school, a feat that has proven very difficult for those who grow up in the foster care system.

And not to pee in the Wheaties of all the gay couples looking to get married but I would have to assume that they would have a similar divorce rate as the rest of America. Currently America’s divorce rate comes to approximately 41% for first time marriages. Divorce is big business in the United States. According to maritalstatus.com, a web site geared toward divorce and remarriage, divorce is a $28 billion-a-year industry with an average cost of about $20,000. If only 30% of those 3 million weddings end in divorce, we would see an additional $18 billion added to the US economy.

So let’s face it people, gay marriage is not only the moral thing to do, it is the fiscally responsible thing to do.

For you religious zealots out there who are afraid that your church will be forced to conduct gay marriages, I am sure you are safe. As an agnostic, most churches would not have agreed to marry me and my wife, yet I did not attempt to sue to force a church to marry us. There are plenty of options out there such as gay positive Unitarian Universalist churches, internet churches (my own wedding was conducted by our friend who was ordained online) or a justice of the peace. This is not about religion.  Marriage is not purely a religious affair. If it were than at least 20% of US marriages would be void due to lack of strict religious observance.  Separation of church and state will preclude the government from forcing a minister to marry a couple (could you really see a couple wanting to be married by a minister or congregation that did not want them in their church?). If a gay couple wants a religious wedding, one would hope that they would only want it performed by a church who values who and what they are.  And do not tell me its the sin you hate not the sinner or that the bible tells you that homosexuality is wrong.

Any scholar of history can see that “the bible say” has been used as an excuse to oppress groups of people for centuries. Just ask the blacks we once enslaved, the Native American’s we wiped out, or the women we subjugated through our own American history. You cannot cloak your bigotry in rightousness by hiding behind your religion.

Unfortunately, the Republican Party will fight gay marriage with all their minority power as they have been captured by socially conservative zealots for the 2nd time in the last 50 years. It was similar Republican zealots who burned any bridge they once had with the black community. Republican’s were the party that freed the slaves, Democrats, particularly Southern Democrats, were the party that fought against them but as the decades passed Republicans became as opposed to supporting the civil rights of blacks as Southern Democrats were.

 When the Civil Rights Act of 1957 came up for a Senate vote, Democratic Senator Strom Thurmond executed the longest filibuster in history to defeat the act (over 24 hours of non-stop talking).  This should have been Republicans chance to denounce the racism of the Democratic South, instead the Republicans joined Southern Democrats to fight against civil rights legislation and when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, Senator Thurmond joined a his fellow Southern Democrats in defecting to the Republican Party. By opposing this act and many others similar to it during the 1960s the Republicans forfeited for generations their ability to speak to or for the black community. True they did manage to ensare the racist Southern Democrats who defected, as LBJ had predicted they would, but these voters and their ancestors will soon form the minority in this nation.  In a multi-cultural America the GOP has led itself into representing an America that no longer exists.  And just as they have lost their chance with the black community, 2008 showed that they are equally losing the gains they had previously made in the Hispanic community due to their negative actions against immigrants and immigration.

Part of what makes this so sad for Republicans is that they are left without a viable platform.  When you think of the party, you think of fiscal and social conservatism and yet, they destroyed their fiscally conservative reputation as they cut and spent during the first six years of Bush’s unified government.  According to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, George W. Bush’s government was the biggest spending government since Lyndon B. Johnson and what’s worse we have nothing tangible to show for it. Republicans have shown that they can not only spend as well as Democrats but that they don’t spend it on building anything lasting and they don’t attempt to raise revenue to pay for it.

Then you look at their social conservatism also known as family values. Of late, this family values platform consists of simple prejudice towards one class of individuals after another. So visceral is the party’s opposition to the rights of gays in America that I cannot understand how someone who is socially liberal and fiscally conservative can call themselves a Republican (you are a Libertarian my friend) not the least of which because the Republican fiscal conservatism is obviously a lie. But even if it were true and they could make the country run as smoothly and as profitably as the best corporation, would that make up for their lack of basic morality and opposition to civil rights? Would you rather be a rich person living in a fascist state such as China where economic freedoms are traded everyday for civil rights and liberties or would you rather live a middle-class life somewhere in America where the richness of our liberty is shared by all?

In their opposition to gay marriage, Republicans will one day look back and realize that they are doing it again. Just as they eventually lost the war over race, so too, will they lose the war over homosexuality.  Today’s youth increasingly date and marry interracially. Look at my married neighbors— one is Indian and the other white American and they are adopting a child from Korea. Three of my wife’s best friends all entered into bi-racial marriages. I have so many interracially married friends nowadays that I barely even notice.

Today’s youth see nothing wrong with interracial dating or marriage. In that same light, fewer and fewer see anything wrong with homosexuality or with gay marriage. As their numbers grow and as social conservatives age and die off, the fight will be won by way of natural attrition. Hopefully some Republicans will live long enough to see their own grandchildren celebrate the marriage of a gay friend or better yet enter into a gay marriage themselves.

Republican’s grandchildren will look back at this time in American history and see the opposition to gay marriage as an example of a nation’s struggle to respect the civil and human rights of all its citizens and they will feel sadness that their own grandparents or great grandparents were not on the right side of history.

As for the Democrats, don’t go patting yourselves on the backs. Many of you see the inherent immorality of denying gay marriage but are unwilling to take the political risks—President Obama included. I ask you, when was the right time to end slavery? When was the right time to give women the right to vote? When was the right time to allow a black person and white person the right to marry? (See Loving v. Virginia). If not now, than when?

 Today’s homophobia is yesterday’s racism. The election of Obama may have dealt a mighty blow against racism but, another maligned group finds itself still locked in closets of shame. Gays and lesbians get no gay marriage, no national laws supporting civil unions and a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when they dare to serve their nation. No matter how you try to justify it, the truth is—being gay or lesbian means you are not considered a citizen with the same rights as your heterosexual brethren.  

I know there is a lot on your plate Mr. President, but President Johnson, for all his faults, managed to pass civil rights legislation while investing in his Great Society and fighting the Vietnam War.  None would accuse you agenda of lacking ambition, but when it comes to the issue of gay marriage, will you stand for liberty or prejudice? I ask you now, which side are you on?

I was energized by your message of hope, but “Yes We Can” feels just a bit hollow when compared to the “No You Can’t” faced by so many of our citizens. I guess “Yes We Can” doesn’t apply to all of us.