(Trenton, New Jersey) LGBT rights activists are stepping up their pressure on New Jersey lawmakers to take up legislation that would convert the state's civil unions law to provide for marriage.

The decision by the California Supreme Court to allow same-sex marriage has helped in the fight and a study released Friday will likely add to the argument that allowing gays and lesbians to marry is not only a matter of equal rights but also is good business.

The study, released by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law examined the potential economic gains that same-sex couples' weddings would bring to New Jersey.

Presently California stands as the sole recipient of the same-sex tourism and wedding windfall because, unlike Massachusetts which limits marriage licenses only to people from areas where the marriages would be legal, California has opened the marriage gate to same-sex couples from across the country.

If New Jersey extended marriage to same-sex couples it could share in that windfall, the Williams Institute study said.

The New Jersey wedding industry will receive a substantial $248 million boost in direct spending by same-sex couples over the next three years, the study said.

It predicts that, based on the experience of Massachusetts, half of New Jerseys 21,178 same-sex couples will want to marry, leading to 10,589 weddings. Another 45,831 out-of-state couples are likely to travel to New Jersey to marry.

This economic lift will also likely generate over 800 new jobs in the state the study found.

"In a tough economic climate, marriage can directly benefit the New Jersey budget in a direct, tangible, and substantial way," said economist M.V. Lee Badgett, co-author of the study and research director of The Williams Institute.

Weddings by same-sex couples in New Jersey will have a positive impact on the state budget of over $96 million within the next three years, the report found.

Sales and occupancy tax revenues from wedding related expenses by both in-state and out-of-state couples will total approximately $17.3 million. In addition, same-sex weddings will generate $1.6 million in marriage license fees for the state and counties of New Jersey.

"The fiscal effects of same-sex marriage are undeniable, the sooner New Jersey expands marriage to same-sex couples, the sooner state and local governments receive much needed economic boosts," notes study co-author Brad Sears, executive director of the Williams Institute.

In 2006 the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled same-sex couples must have all the rights of marriage.

The Court gave the New Jersey State Legislature 180 days to act on the decision to grant same-sex couples the rights and benefits enjoyed by different-sex married couples but left it up to the legislators to decide whether to call it marriage or civil unions. (story)

The legislature opted for civil unions. But, that said civil rights groups, amounts to separate but equal.

A commission established by the state to study same-sex civil unions in New Jersey agrees with that argument.

In a report submitted in February the commission found that gay couples in Massachusetts, the only state that now allows same-sex marriage, do not experience some of the legal complications that those in New Jersey do.

The commission held three public hearings last year at which the majority of the testimony came from people who were in civil unions and said they were still not being treated the way married couples are by government agencies, employers and others.

For instance, the commission found that many companies in the state that are self-insured - and therefore are regulated by federal, rather than state, law - refuse to provide health insurance to the partners of their employees.

A bill to allow for same-sex marriage has been filed in the New Jersey legislature but it is unlike to receive a vote in the current session.