States See Boost From Gay Weddings

The only two U.S. states to allow gay marriage, Massachusetts and Connecticut, see an economic boost after gay and lesbian couples who planned to marry in California, turn to New England instead.

"California's loss will be Connecticut's and Massachusetts' gain economically," said M.V. Lee Badgett, an economist at the University of Massachusetts' Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies, according to Reuters.

She doubts the bad economy will slow the weddings.

"My sense is that gay people are aware that they can't take the right to marriage for granted -- that it could be taken away. To that extent, people may not wait to get married. They may just have cheaper weddings," she said.

She led a study released in July that said over the next three years about 32,200 same-sex couples would travel from other states to marry in Massachusetts, which became the first U.S. state to legalize gay marriage in 2004.

That would translate into 330 jobs and a $111 million boost to the state's economy, the study projects.

She expects a similar benefit over the same period for Connecticut, which legalized gay marriage on November 12. But spending could be higher in both states after California's recent ban on same-sex marriage, she added.

"We take all the hundreds of millions that would have been spent in California, if those folks decide to get married and go to Massachusetts and Connecticut instead, those states will get even more than we had originally estimated," she said.

Another destination for U.S. couples is Canada, where same-sex marriages are legal.

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