Christine Halverson's Entry For The 2004 Moffatt Prize in Economics
Since the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to wed, the gay marriage debate has spread from coast to coast. State lawmakers are scrambling to pass amendments banning or denying recognition of same-sex marriages while mayors from New York, California, and other states have been issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. Thus far, the gay marriage debate has focused primarily on normative moral and legal arguments. Opponents argue that marriage is defined as one man and one woman and any attempt to change this would result in moral decadence-at minimum an insult to heterosexual couples and at worse a slippery slope leading to brothers marrying sisters, humans marrying animals, polygamy, and a variety of other sexual deviances. Advocates of gay marriage point to the Fourteenth Amendment citing the right to privacy and arguing that civil unions-the alternative to gay marriage that some states are now embracing-are nothing more than a separate but (un)equal way of denying gays a civil liberty.Little attention, however, has been given to the economic issues related to gay marriage. When it has been the subject of attention, it has primarily been focused on the added costs. In 1996, President Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined "marriage" in federal law as applying only to opposite-sex couples and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted in other states. During the debate on DOMA, legislatures supporting the bill argued that extending tax breaks and other legal benefits to same-sex couples would result in increased costs to state and federal governments. As Senator Robert Byrd pointed out in the debates, before expanding the definition of marriage to include same-sex partners one needs to look at the "added cost in Medicare and Medicare benefits."
Marriage does have its monetary benefits-especially for older couples-and they definitely add up. According to a Human Rights Campaign Foundation Report released in January, the loss of Social Security benefits for surviving same-sex partners amounts to an average loss of $5,528 per person. A surviving gay or lesbian partner is taxed when they inherit a retirement plan or home from their partner (even if it is jointly owned)-a tax that surviving spouses do not face. Same-sex couples are also at risk of losing their home when a partner enters a nursing home if the assistance of Medicaid benefits is required. Of course, you don't have to be "married" to have some of these benefits. Since 2000, Vermont has granted the same legal rights-on a state level-to gay and lesbian couples joined in a civil union, and as popular support for civil unions rise (according to a March 2004 Gallop Poll 54% of people favor civil unions), it is certain that more states will be following Vermont's lead. As for healthcare benefits, a growing number of corporations have voluntarily offered domestic partnership benefits to same-sex couples for almost a decade.
Be Sure to Continue to Page 2 of "Gay Marriage Makes Cents".
