Wedding Trade Expects Boost From Gay-Marriage Laws

To nobody's surprise, ABC News has this here article about the business boost expected from gay marriage being legalized in the states of Maine, Maryland and Washington. Here's some of it:

Nearly 18,000 same-sex couples in those states will exchange vows in the first three years after the new laws are in effect, estimated The Williams Institute, a national think tank at the UCLA School of Law, and the laws should generate at least $166 million in wedding spending in the three states over the next three years from in-state couples alone, boosting tax revenues and creating new jobs.
Wedding-related spending for in-state couples is projected be about $16 million in Maine, $63 million in Maryland and $89 million in Washington.

The numbers go up when figuring in out-of-staters who travel to those states to be wed. In Maine, for instance, the new law could boost the state economy by $25 million and create up to 250 new jobs in the coming three years, said Lee Badgett, research director at the Williams Institute and an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts.

Make sure to read the whole article. This is another blow in the face of hate groups whose rhetoric often includes how harmful gay marriage is for small businesses.

"Every Time People Have Voted on Gay Marriage, They Have Voted Against It... Update: Never Mind!"

Nobody can deny that marriage equality won on Tuesday, or that it won in a dramatic reversal of the trend. The biggest argument hate groups have used - that it's all the workings of us evil homofascist, helped by "activist judges and politicians", and that when the people have a say, they reject it - was not just tentatively dented, it was crashed, killed and destroyed in an across the board landslide that left no room for doubt and no way to call it a fluke - in FOUR states people were asked to stand with marriage equality or against it, and in ALL FOUR they chose to stand on the side of justice and human dignity. It is a resounding defeat of bigotry that has already changed the marriage discourse forever, and will have serious implications in future fights.

Meanwhile, hate groups, GOP nut jobs and self-appointed Christian Neanderthal moralists all across America are - as Joe hilariously puts it - "having the sadz", and whining their precious hearts out. They were outspent, the poor dears, after pouring millions into pointless hatred. The Four were "deeply liberal". It was an "uphill battle". Gotta love a language change and role reversal. All in all, this is what Tony Perkins, Maggie Galaghar, Brian Brown and the ever so magically quaffed Kalley Yanta have to say about what happened on November 6:

Yes, I feel not a shred of graciousness in myself right now. Victory tastes good!

A Dramatic Win For Justice, Vision And Equality

Two months ago I made the decision to stop blogging until the 2012 Election was done. Too much information, too much static, too many barbs thrown in all directions. Now that the craze is over though, and I've come down from the full body orgasm high from Tuesday, I can resume programming.

WE WON!

All across the board we won. Our President, out senators, our rights won in a way that not even I expected. The American people said a resounding NO to fear mongering, religious bigotry and the unquestioned superiority of rich white males.

I could gush all over our victories (and i will in another post about our Four Out of Four historic triumph), but instead, I'll just leave you with this here video in which the love of my life Rachel Maddow summarizes all that went well on Nov. 6. Enjoy.

NOM's Uglyness Exposed, Part I

The Human Rights Campaign has published internal NOM communiques that were unsealed yesterday as part of Maine's investigation into NOM's financial dealings. You can see the whole document if you follow the link. Meanwhile, probably the most horrendous item on the agenda is the explicitly stated goal of driving "a wedge between gays and blacks—two key Democratic constituencies." That an organization that is supposed to be devoted to "protecting marriage" has such a blatantly political purpose surprises no one, but the racism is just staggering. Here's the full quote, and some more:

“The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks—two key Democratic constituencies. Find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage, develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots…”

[snip]

"The Latino vote in America is a key swing vote, and will be so even more so in the future, both because of demographic growth and inherent uncertainty: Will the process of assimilation to the dominant Anglo culture lead Hispanics to abandon traditional family values? We must interrupt this process of assimilation by making support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity - a symbol of resistance to inappropriate assimilation."

I expect this will cause irreparable damage to NOM (which is a personal "favorite" of mine among the hate groups because of Orson Scott Card's presence on their board of directors). I'm curious however as to how the rest of the hate groups will respond. As much as I want to see NOM burn, I expect a passionate cry of "Help! We're being oppressed!" instead of addressing the issue of naked race-baiting.

The news has already gone mainstream, but major news outlets are yet to address it. Anyway, more on the story, as it develops.

Marriage Equality News 02.24.2012

The news just keep piling. After the California District Court declared DOMA to be unconstitutional, and the Maryland Senate passed its Marriage Equality bill two days ago, today we learned that Gay Marriage advocates in Maine have collected more than enough signatures to put marriage equality on the November ballot. That is the first time that our side puts the issue on the ballot, and it is expected that the majority will support it.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church has sworn to stop gay marriage in Maryland. Here's what Cardinal Edwin F. O’Brien, Archbishop of Baltimore, has to say about it:

Now, Maryland’s politicians unconscionably have chosen political expediency over the good of society–the fundamental charge of their office–by daring to redefine this sacred union between one man and one woman. Their action poses a grave threat to the future stability of the nuclear family and the society it anchors. The Archdiocese will continue to advocate for the preservation of both and will eagerly and zealously engage its 500,000 members in overturning this radical legislation, and will join with the hundreds of thousands of others in this Archdiocese and throughout Maryland in aggressively protecting the God-given institution of marriage.

Make sure you read the whole post at Good as You.

In other news, today GOP House Speaker John Boehner ordered Wednesday's federal court ruling that Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional to be appealed. It's not so much GOP's usual homophobia and spasmodic reactions to the tide of gay marriage victories we've been experiencing that fills me with disgust, but rather the fact that Boehner is supported by Log Cabin Republicans head R. Clark Cooper and former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman - both openly gay and supposedly proponents of LGBT rights. Labeled under "internalized homophobia" (Related - my thoughts on gay conservatives).