Study: Gay marriage would bring cash to Nev.
By Wesley Juhl, Las Vegas Review-Journal
If Nevada were to legalize same-sex marriages, the state would see significant economic benefits, a report released last week found.
In the first three years that same-sex couples could marry, Nevada’s wedding and tourism industries could see spending rise between $23 million and $52 million, which would raise state and local tax revenues between $1.8 million and $4.2 million, according to the report by the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy, a think tank at the UCLA School of Law.
The institute tracked economic and census data from states that have legalized same-sex marriage and applied those trends to Nevada. If the Silver State follows suit, it could reap millions of dollars of taxable revenue, the report said.
Nevada has 7,140 same-sex couples living in the state, according to census data. If gay and lesbian couples married in Nevada at the same rate as those in Massachusetts a decade ago, half of Nevada’s LGBT couples would marry in the first three years, the report found.