Gay Marriage Is So Money
I want to get married. But as a lesbian I cannot, and I have to admit that it gets to me. My girlfriend and I have been together for more than two years, and if I were a man people would be expecting me to begin plans for my very romantic proposal. But since we’re women, no one is really expecting us to do anything but perpetually date. And even if I was planning a unique proposal for my girlfriend, without the legal rights that come with straight marriage, it would be like buying a counterfeit concert ticket: The engagement ring is the ticket, but they won’t let me into the show.
So exactly why can’t we get married? Of course we’ve heard the religious right using the topic as a polarizing and distracting issue during the election season, but let’s pretend that separation of church and state actually exists in America, and I’ll ask again: Why can’t we get married?
I can propose one reason why gays should be able to get legally married, and it’s one that, unfortunately, I have not heard from anyone else: Money.
We are a very money-oriented society, so if we present the value of gay marriage as an economic issue, rather than a human rights issue, I think the wedding industry would lobby for our cause from coast to coast.
Allow me to don my math hat and geek-taped glasses, so I can demonstrate what I mean. According to a Wedding Budget Worksheet I found online, there are 45 purchases necessary for a wedding. Forty-five.
Now, I added the average dollar amounts to each of those line items, and the grand total came to $28,800 for an average straight wedding. For simplicity’s sake, let’s focus on just one of those line items—flowers.
According to the Wedding Report, the average cost of flowers per wedding is $2,048. Now take the fact that, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 2.4 million couples who marry every year in this country, and the estimated total spent on flowers annually in American weddings is $4,915,200,000. That’s right, almost $5 billion.
And that’s just for flowers.
The Census Bureau estimates that there are 707,196 gay couples in the U.S. (of course, these are couples who actually identified themselves as gay on the census, so the accurate number is probably higher), and let’s assume that half of them would marry if it were legal for them to do so.
Based on this, how much more revenue would florists make in wedding flowers from legalized gay marriages? The answer is $1,488,337,408—almost $1.5 billion.
And as I said, that’s just for flowers.
Any Fortune 500 company would immediately jump on an opportunity to make that kind of new profit, so why not the government? After all, it will be raking in the taxes on those flowers, not to mention everything else, plus the actual marriage license fees, etc.
So the next time supporters of gay marriage lobby lawmakers to legalize it, they can strengthen their position by taking along a CPA to help explain that to financially get further into the “black” requires every color in the rainbow.
Love it!
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This is very well written. I hope that someone in government reads this. I hope that one day people will realize that you are born gay and that noone would just choose this lifestyle to be ridiculed. I wish you and Katie Jo luck.
Love you on the show.
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You know how you asked a while back what people wanted to see in your blog? Well, this is something I really enjoyed. I've read a lot of your articles and I'm always impressed with how well thought out and well written they are. You have a knack for stating your thoughts and opinions without conflict, which means people actually pay more attention to what you're saying. Of course, the personal stuff and the random thoughts are cool too. :o)
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I am so proud of you melissa for standing up for your rights! I feel the exact same way you do....although, I am straight I support you and your beliefs 100%! You have always stood for your beliefs even when we were in school...DONT BACK DOWN!
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I am not gay and have never really understood it but i do understand love and I feel like everyone has a right and the discretion to whom ever they see fit. I am christian and that is why I support this article. The only word that describes God is love and no one knows the heart of another person. Good Luck and Lots of Happponess
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Do I think gays should be able to marry? Damn straight I do and im a heterosexual, its just so hard to fing UT fans down here I support Melissa whenever I can.
As to gay marriage, let them marry, the only thing I have issue with and maybe its because I still hold some old fashion values, but I feel that the marriage cannot be performed before the lord. Dont as me why I think this I just do. I do however think gay couples should be able to enter into a civil union, which by the way is what a marriage is if you get married by a justice of the peace. I think once entered into this union they are granted all rights and priveledges as your old average run of the mill man and wife married couple. Benefits at work, medical insurance, taxes, property ownership, everything.
I may have a strange belief system but I think man, woman and child is guaranteed the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
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I tottally agree...I myself am lesbian and my girlfriend and i have been together for almost a year now and we have talked about marriage..of course not right now but in a few years..I dont see why we dont have the same rights as straight individuals, theres not really any difference btwn us accept we are with those of the same sex..we eat sleep poop and work just like everyone else..the same rights they are entitled to, marriage wise and everything else, we should have the same and not looked at like we are a dsgrace to society and treated like the Constitution says...EQUALLY...
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My fiance' and I are getting married this Saturday. As a lesbian couple, we of course, cannot do it the old-fashioned way. So we are having a vow exchange, that we wrote,a celebration with family and friends after and a couple of days get-a-way honeymoon nearby. We are doing our celebration the way we want it, though. We are fortyish and we love the super heroes we grew up with. Soo, we are having a super hero celebration. All of our decorations are in Spiderman, Batman, Superman and various others. We have our guests with the option of wearing costumes or super themed wear. Our food is all in the super hero blue, red & yellow. We are having it at our family friends' house. We are going to plan a paper marriage next year in California or Vermont, where it's legal($$$$ permitting).
We don't care what others think. We have been together for 2 1/2 years. I proposed over a year ago. We own a house, vehicles and possessions together. We have joint accounts, etc. I am tired of living in a state that will not only afford me the same opportunities or rights that a straight person has, but does not even allow me to decide on my own if I have the ability to responsibly buy an alcoholic beverage 7 days a week.
We have 4 children. As soon as the last one leaves the nest in 5 years, we are out of this state and off to one that will stop treating us like insolent little children being stuck in a corner pouting and sulking because we cannot have our own way. And yes, for the naysayers out there, we are faith-based and teach our children to look beyond race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. We would like to thank those parents who teach their children to not cross the race line, it's ok to be gay, as long as it's not your child and who like to make fun of our children at school. Way to not judge and LOVE thy neighbor. GOD would be proud.
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