Legalization of same-sex marriage will make state tourist magnet for homosexuals from across U.S., study predicts

The California Supreme Court’s legalization of homosexual marriage will prove a boon to marriage-seeking homosexual couples not only here, but in New York as well.

Up until last month, when the court discovered that the California constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage, the only marriage option for New York homosexual couples was to relocate to Massachusetts – whose constitution also guarantees the right to same-sex marriage, according to the state’s highest court. But after the California Supreme Court declared a state law banning homosexual marriage unconstitutional, New York Governor David Paterson told state agencies to recognize all marriages, “gay” or “straight,” performed in other states or countries.

Paterson’s decree means that homosexual marriages contracted in Canada, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, South Africa, Massachusetts, and California will be recognized as marriages in New York, though the state has not granted homosexuals the right to marry. Though nearer to New York, Massachusetts grants marriage licenses only to state residents. This leaves California as the probable destination for those New York homosexuals who want to be married because a couple does not have to reside in California to obtain a marriage license here.

And a good number of same-sex couples from New York are expected to come to California, according to a study released last week by UCLA Law School’s Williams Institute. According to its web site, the Williams Institute “advances sexual orientation law and public policy through rigorous, independent research and scholarship, and disseminates it to judges, legislators, policymakers, media and the public.”

The Williams Institute study concluded that, over the next three years, out of New York’s nearly 49,000 same-sex couples, 12,190 will travel to California to get married. But New York couples will not be the only non-Californians seeking marriage in the state. About 1,629 of New Mexico’s 6,515 homosexual couples will come to California to be married. Like New York, New Mexico will likely recognize same-sex marriages contracted in other jurisdictions, said the study. Homosexual couples will come, too, from other states that are California’s “top domestic tourism markets” -- Arizona, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Texas and North Carolina.

The study identified two incentives drawing homosexual couples to California – the likelihood that “their relationships will be recognized by their state when they return home” (as in the case of New York and New Mexico) or because they will see marriage as an alternative to civil unions, which are not available in their state. Another reason some will come to California will be “to marry for symbolic and emotional reasons.” On the whole, the study predicts that over the next three years, 67,513 homosexual couples will come to California to be married.

The main focus of the study, however, was the impact legalizing same-sex marriage will have on California’s budget. And, given the tourism arising from such marriages, that amount may be significant -- $63.8 million in state and local government revenues, said the study. What’s more, according to the study’s executive summary, “the Congressional Budget Office has concluded that if all fifty states and the federal government extended the rights and obligations of marriage to same-sex couples, the federal government would benefit by nearly $1 billion each year.”