Same-sex marriage a fiscal boon?

IN BLOOM: Christina Chandler, a partner at Studio 539 on Wickenden Street, said her business has handled several same-sex marriages in Massachusetts. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
IN BLOOM: Christina Chandler, a partner at Studio 539 on Wickenden Street, said her business has handled several same-sex marriages in Massachusetts. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

The long fight over legalizing same-sex marriage in the Ocean State has a host of social, moral, political and even religious consequences that inevitably enflames the debate.
There’s one argument in favor, however, in states that have already legalized it, that even opponents have difficulty questioning: It makes at least some fiscal sense.
Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee, a long-time supporter of marriage equality, has been using economics to argue in favor of the matter by citing a need to compete with nearby states, including Massachusetts and New York – which allow same-sex marriage – in attracting companies and top talent here.
And wedding- and tourism-industry businesses say they would see immediate benefits should the legislation pass.
“I honestly feel we could come close to doubling the wedding business we have,” said Mark Gervais, general manager of the upscale Hotel Viking in Newport. “It would enhance the opportunity to make revenue not only for a hotel in Newport but for Newport and for Rhode Island as a whole.”
Rhode Island, which since July 2011 has allowed civil unions between same-sex couples, is the only New England state in which those couples cannot legally marry.
Rhode Island since 2002 has allowed for unregistered domestic partnerships that provide some legal benefits to same-sex couples. Also, Rhode Island couples since 2006 have been able to marry in Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage became legal nine years ago.
As of May 2012 the state does, under Chafee’s executive order, recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages.
Chafee has been outspoken on his view that Rhode Island should be offering the same legal benefits to same-sex couples as other nearby states in order to promote a business and civil climate of tolerance, given Rhode Island’s stubbornly high unemployment – 9.9 percent in December 2012.
While that benefit may be hard to quantify, wedding-related business would likely rise should same-sex couples be able to hold ceremonies and receptions here.
“For an economic-impact story alone, it would give us a new product to go out and market, and it’s a lucrative market,” said Mark Brodeur, director of tourism for the R.I. Economic Development Corporation. An analysis from the University of California Los Angeles Williams Institute, which conducts research on sexual orientation and gender-identity law and public policy, estimates that the change would generate $1.2 million in new revenue over three years following the legalization of same-sex marriage.
The research indicates that same-sex couples would spend nearly $4 million in wedding expenses over three years and that out-of-state wedding guests would spend $1.35 million here.
The institute estimates that based on data from Massachusetts, about 50 percent of same-sex Rhode Island couples, which the 2011 American Community Survey numbered at 2,210, would marry within the first years of eligibility.
“Rhode Island is an internationally renowned wedding and travel destination,” said Ray Sullivan, campaign director for Rhode Islanders United for Marriage, a grassroots coalition supporting the cause. “Being the only state in the region without marriage equality means Ocean State firms are losing business to our New England neighbors.”
The average cost of a wedding in Rhode Island in 2011, according to The Wedding Report, a research company that tracks and forecasts industry trends, was $26,400, just below the average amount of a nondestination wedding of $27,000, according to an annual Brides Magazine survey released last summer.
But destination weddings, in which couples travel outside their home state to marry, averaged $40,000 in 2012, according to popular wedding website theknot.com.
The Wedding Report estimates that Rhode Island has about 1,000 wedding-related businesses that include hotels, restaurants, caterers, florists, photographers and others.
Christina Chandler, a partner at Studio 539, a florist on Wickenden Street, said her business handles between 70 to 100 weddings a year and that a very small percentage of that have been same-sex weddings in Massachusetts.
Last year, she did flowers for a civil union in Barrington. She currently has same-sex clients who are getting married in Rehoboth.
“I feel like [the law] isn’t stopping [same-sex] couples from having a reception in Rhode Island. They just have to take that extra step to go to Massachusetts to make it legal,” Chandler said. The Williams Institute estimated that Massachusetts received $111 million between 2004 and 2009 attributed to the legalization of same-sex marriage.
Same-sex marriages, according to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials, generated approximately $259 million in economic impact and $16 million in city revenue in one year after the Marriage Equality Act was passed in the state in June 2011.
The Rhode Island business community is uniting in promoting same-sex marriages’ economic benefits. The Newport County Chamber of Commerce issued a statement last month recognizing the positive impact same-sex marriage would have on the hospitality and wedding industries.
The Providence Chamber of Commerce has not done the same, but President Laurie White said the issue indeed is on the Chamber’s radar.
Chris Plante, director of the Rhode Island chapter of the National Organization for Marriage, is campaigning against same-sex marriage here. He said the argument that those marriages could bring an economic boon is greatly inflated, if not flat-out false.
“The idea that this will change the economy of Rhode Island is completely false,” she said.
Plante points to the fact that nine out of the 10 best states for job growth, according to a November 2011 report from Moody’s Analytics, have rejected by popular vote allowing same-sex marriage.
There have been 82 civil-union licenses issued in Rhode Island since it became legal.
Devin Driscoll, communications director for Rhode Islanders United for Marriage, said that seemingly low number can be attributed to the Corvese Amendment, which allows organizations with religious affiliations and their employees to opt out of recognizing those unions.
The R.I. House on Jan. 22 approved legislation introduced by Rep. Arthur Handy and Sen. Donna Nesselbush to legalize same-sex marriage by a 51-19 vote.
The bill could face an uphill battle in the Senate, where Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed, Senate Majority Leader Dominick Ruggerio and Chairman Senate Judiciary Committees Michael McCaffrey have remained openly against the measure. The Senate version of the proposed bill had 11 of 38 members as sponsors. •

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