Outlawing gay marriage will improve the economy, activist says
Of all the idiotic, hair-brained justifications for keeping gay marriage illegal, this has got to be one of the dumbest I’ve heard so far:
There are taxpayer costs associated with the breakdown of the family, so overturning legalized same-sex marriage would go a long way to improve the nation’s sagging economy, according to Tamara Scott, one of several speakers at the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) rally at the state Capitol in Des Moines Sunday afternoon.
NOM, a New Jersey-based anti-gay marriage organization, announced last year that it would launch a new initiative called The Reclaim Iowa Project, with the goal of getting a constitutional amendment before Iowa voters reversing the unanimous ruling of the Iowa Supreme Court that the state’s Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional. Sunday’s rally was part of a nationwide tour of 22 cities designed to build public opposition to same-sex marriage.
Scott, the state director for Concerned Women for America, told the crowd of more than 100 that part of the country’s current economic downturn was to blame on the social costs of the threatened traditional family unit through the legalization of gay marriage.
“It costs you, the taxpayer, as high as $280 billion a year for fragmented families, according to the Family Research Council,” Scott told the crowd, citing a study from the D.C.-based Christian political association from May 2009.
“If we would correct the breakdown of the family by 1 percent, we could save the taxpayer $3 billion a year,” she said. “An easy fix and a better fix long term for our children… When the family is healthy, the community benefits. When the family is hurting, society will pay the cost one way or another. We can fix this economic downturn very easily by fixing some hearts.”
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So basically, continuing to discriminate against gays and lesbians will boost the economy how, exactly?
If these nutjobs haven’t noticed gay marriage is already illegal in most of the country. How in the hell does keeping gay marriage illegal — that is, maintaining the status quo — help to boost jobs or economic growth? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
