Gay Marriage and Outside Options?

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/05/17/study_gay_marriages_pump_111_million_into_mass/

The above article states some statistical data about the economy of Massachusetts due to the legalization of gay marriage. Given that the majority of the 50 states do not permit gay marriage, that leaves the minimal amount of states left with all the accumulation of gay marriages. Left with no other option, these couples are marrying in the few states that allow them to, injecting rather large amounts of cash into those state economies. Needless to say, the state's governments are very happy with this. Since there is very little "competition" out in the US for the gay couples, the states which have legalized gay marriage are in positions of power in terms of the money exchange. This may change, however, as more states are considering passing bills legalizing gay marriage.

The Simpsons had an episode about this called "There's Something About Marrying" in which Homer performed gay marriages for $200 a wedding after Springfield legalizes it to increase tourism revenue. Since Reverend Lovejoy would not perform the wedding, Homer became ordained to do so. Similar to the original post about Massachusetts being one of the few states where gay marriages are allowed and therefore getting a large revenue boost from them, Homer was the only option in Springfield, so he made a lot of money.

We can also look at this in the form of information cascade or a cascade that results in the state switching to allow for gay marriages. For example, various the states could be link together (have an edge between them) because of the similarities with regards to religion, political preferences etc as such they may choose to allow gay marriages depending on how other states that they are strongly connected to react to the situation. Religious views probably result in a very high cluster density and hence, act as a barrier to the switch to allow for gay marriages.