The Twin Cities is one of the few nationally recognized centers of the ad industry outside of New York and Los Angeles. Twin Cities ad offices have billings of about $2 billion a year, and provide thousands of well-paying jobs.
That's why we should care about the letter that 50 local ad agencies sent to Gov. Pawlenty.
The letter says that such a constitutional amendment could undermine a creative business climate, stifle recruitment and send the wrong message to potential clients.
The agencies are self-interested to a degree, since many creative fields such as advertising have a higher-than-average percentage of gay employees. But when that industry is a major part of the state economy, we all have an interest in it.
There's research that shows a correlation between a region's gay population and its cultural and economic vibrancy. One can debate the causality -- do concentrations of gays create such vibrancy, or does the vibrancy create an environment that is attractive to gays? -- but the correlation is clear.
A gay marriage ban is not only unjust; it would be economically damaging to the state, chasing away the sort of high-paying jobs that we should be trying to attract.
creative class, gay marriage, politics, midtopia
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