THE UPSIDE OF NO MARRIAGE RIGHTS
If you can't get married, you save a lot on taxes. Research by economists James Alm, M.V. Lee Badgett, and the late Leslie Whittington (who was killed in the plane that hit the Pentagon on September 11), estimates that legalizing single-sex marriages "would lead to an annual increase in federal government income taxes of between $0.3 billion and $1.3 billion, with the likely impact toward the higher range of the estimates." The paper, titled "Wedding Bell Blues," can be downloaded from Jim Alm's website. (Alm et al. are known for their research on what economists call "marriage non-neutrality" and politicians call the marriage penalty.)
Just think what legalizing gay marriage could do for California's budget crisis...