"Marriage Is Good for Business"

In my play Their Town, the new mayor of Grover's Corners, Joe Hersey, proposes a plan to help the town economically by performing a legal marriage ceremony for a lesbian couple. His reasoning is that marriage is good for business - gays and lesbians will flock to the town, he concludes, and their support will give a boost to floundering local businesses.

It's not as far-fetched as it sounds - the Williams Institute, an LGBT think tank, published a report last fall on this very topic. Click here to download the report, called "The Effect of Marriage Equality and Domestic Partnership on the Economy." (You'll need an Adobe PDF reader.)

One of the many interesting factoids that I learned in my research for the play is that in 2004, when San Francisco was issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, a local Macy's actually sold out of wedding rings. I used that in my play, because it's just so telling about the eagerness of many same-sex couples to legalize their relationships.