Onslaught of Gay Marriages
By Dwight MacPherson

The onslaught of gay marriages has not happened as proponents predicted. September 6th was the first gay marriage performed in Rutland at the Unitarian Church, a full six days after enactment. On September 1st, the first day gay marriage was allowed in Vermont, salivating media had to search far and wide to find small celebrations in varied corners of Vermont. 

The Vermont Senate Judiciary Committee that rammed the legislation through with only 15 hours of committee time, less than half the time spent on the important "dog house bill," gave considerable valuable testimony time to a report produced by California professors. The report claimed that Vermont would accumulate millions in tax revenue each year if we adopted the gay marriage law. This amount of revenue would mean that tens of millions would need to be spent in Vermont each year to generate that kind of tax revenue. The committee was gleeful with the report, did not challenge one scintilla of data or its conclusions, and chalked up one more reason to pass the gay marriage bill out of committee. Well, as the old Wendy's commercial said, "WHERE'S THE BEEF?" Where is the evidence of gay weddings in Vermont bringing much needed commerce to the state? 

Did the committee ask if gay marriage might discourage some traditional-minded heterosexual out-of-state couples (who outnumbering gay couples 210 to 1) from using Vermont as a wedding destination? No, they could not bother with such an inane question.

While the committee swooned over the gay marriage revenue report, they completely ignored a ground breaking, non-partisan research-based study of the hidden costs of the breakdown of marriage in the United States that the Vermont Marriage Advisory Council provided. (link: The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing First Ever Estimates for the Nation and All Fifty States) The study showed a minimum price tag of $112 billion annually to the USA and $74 million each year to Vermont as a direct result of a weaker marriage institution (compared to 1970) which gay marriage will surely exacerbate. 

It will be timely to ask your Senators and Representative next fall, "where's the beef", and explain the real tax beef (savings and revenue) is with a strong marriage institution, the real one! 

Dwight MacPherson is the Executive Director of Vermont Renewal (http://www.vermontrenewal.org/)