Is Gay Marriage an Economic Development Plan?

RealClearPolitics ^ | March 22, 2011 | Maggie Gallagher

[2ndDivisionVet]

The arguments for gay marriage get ever stranger:

This week in Indiana, Jill Cook, an executive from engine-maker Cummins Inc., testified that a proposed state marriage amendment "jeopardizes our ability to be competitive in global markets."

I hope Cook was not testifying under oath, because that's an amazing whopper of a claim, and one that we are hearing more and more often.

In Rhode Island, newly elected Gov. Lincoln Chafee actually touts gay marriage as key to his economic development plan for Rhode Island.

Chafee brandishes the 2007 book "The Flight of the Creative Class" by professor Richard Florida to make his weird case. As columnist Edward Fitzpatrick of The Providence Journal noted, Chafee talked about Florida's book when he first chaired the state's economic development corporation board. During the Feb. 6 edition of Providence NBC-affiliate WJAR's "10 News Conference," Chafee paired gay marriage with repealing a measure requiring employers to verify legal status as twin necessities for economic growth. In his inaugural address, Chafee actually claimed passing gay marriage would do "more for economic growth in our state than any economic development loan."

Clearly, a strange new meme has been launched. The people launching it must believe themselves immune from rational scrutiny. What's the evidence that state marriage amendments hurt, or that gay marriage helps, economic growth?

[achilles2000]

By the way, it isn’t the male sodomites who really care all that much about imposing a sodomite burlesque of marriage; it’s the female sodomites.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks 2ndDivisionVet. Related:

• Obama admin introduces gay rights declaration at UN

[TheOldLady]

They’re going to rub our faces in homosexuality until the issue explodes. What ever happened to decency and decorum? Get back in the dang closet. No one cares about your personal problems but your family and personal friends.