USA: Updated Gay Marriage Map

Countries Where Atheism Is Punishable By Death

Let’s be grateful that we live in the west, and speak out on behalf of those who are silenced.

Christmas to me is like Thanksgiving. A chance to gather together with family and friends, enjoy their company and love, and usually full of drama. I totally draw the line with their pagan traditions. 

USA: Marriage Map Update

The New York Times takes a look at what may come next:

Elated by their first ballot victories, in four states, advocates of same-sex marriage rights plan to push legislatures in half a dozen more states toward legalization as they also press their cause in federal courts. They are also preparing for what they hope will be another milestone: the electoral reversal of a constitutional amendment defining marriage as solely between a man and a woman, in Oregon in 2014. Nine states and Washington, D.C., have now legalized same-sex marriage. Though it remains unpopular in the South, rights campaigners see the potential for legislative gains in Delaware; Hawaii; Illinois; Rhode Island; Minnesota, where they beat back a restrictive amendment last Tuesday; and New Jersey, where Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in February.

Map: The Geography Of Tolerance

By Richard Florida, via The Atlantic Cities:

Tolerance—the third of my 3Ts of economic development—provides a critical source of economic advantage that works alongside Technology and Talent. Places that are open to new ideas attract creative people from around the globe, broadening both their technology and talent capabilities, gaining a substantial economic edge.

The map above shows how metros across the U.S. score on the Tolerance Index, as updated forThe Rise of the Creative Class, Revisited. The chart below shows the top 20 metros. Developed by my Martin Prosperity Institute colleague Kevin Stolarick, it ranks U.S. metros according to three key variables—the share of immigrants or foreign-born residents, the Gay Index (the concentration of gays and lesbians), and the Integration Index, which tracks the level of segregation between ethnic and racial groups.

     Metro                                                 Tolerance Index Score

1. San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA            .751
2. Napa, CA                                                .747
3. Santa Rosa-Petaluma, CA                          .739
4. Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA                       .738 
5. Santa Fe, NM                                          .726
6. Ithaca, NY                                              .723
7. Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura, CA            .708
8. Cape Coral-Fort Myers, FL                         .702
9. Boulder, CO                                             .701
10. Ann Arbor, MI                                          .693 
11. Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach, FL        .692
12. Greeley, CO                                            .691
13. Trenton-Ewing, NJ                                   .690
14. Fresno, CA                                             .687
15. Las Vegas-Paradise, NV                            .686
16. Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA       .684
17. San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA           .683
18. Worcester, MA                                        .680 
19. Carson City, NV                                       .679
20. Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH              .678

Even more than its natural resources and native ingenuity, what has stood at the heart and soul of U.S. prosperity historically has been its openness to hard working, ambitious, and talented immigrants of all stripes—doctors, engineers, and uneducated laborers alike. Roughly half of Silicon Valley start-ups have a foreign-born person among their founding team, according to several recent studies. Careful studies by the economist Giovanni Peri of the University of California at Davis have found that immigrants add rather than detract from American prosperity, for the simple reason that “the skill composition of immigrants is complementary to that of natives.” At the low-skill end of the spectrum, immigrants specialize in “manual intensive tasks such as cooking, driving, and building” that their American counterparts tend not to do. At the high-skill end of the spectrum, immigrants bring scientific, technical, and entrepreneurial skills that are in short supply and vital for America’s innovative and entrepreneurial engine. A “more multicultural urban environment,” Peri concludes, “makes U.S.-born citizens more productive.”

Openness to gays and lesbians similarly reflects an ecosystem that is open to new people and new ideas. It’s amazing how consistently people have misconstrued what my colleagues and I have had to say about the connection between gays and economic growth. They miss the point. A strong and vibrant gay community is a solid leading indicator of a place that is open to many different kinds of people. Ronald Inglehart, who has studied the relationship between culture and economic growth for some four decades, has noted that the lack of societal acceptance of gays is the most significant remaining bastion of intolerance and discrimination around the world. Accordingly, communities that have long been more accepting and open to gay people have an underlying ecosystem which is also more likely to be accepting of new ideas and different types of people, including the eggheads and eccentrics who invent new things and start new enterprises. As Bill Bishop put it, “where gay households abound, geeks follow.”

Tolerance affects economic growth by shaping the flow of technology and talent. Most economists tend to see technology and talent as fixed stocks, like raw materials or natural resources, but the reality is that they are flows. Unlike seams of coal or natural harbors, talented people are mobile factors—they can and do move around. Of course talented people come from different racial and ethnic backgrounds - a substantial share of Silicon Valley startups were founded by people who hail originally from outside the United States -  as well as different sexual orientations.The fact that some places are better attracting this flow of talent is associated with how open to different kinds of people they are.

Economists frequently note the importance of industries having low entry barriers, so that new firms can easily enter and keep the industry vital. Similarly, a place can benefit from low entry barriers for people—where newcomers from different backgrounds are accepted quickly into all sorts of social and economic arrangements. All else being equal, such communities have an advantage in attracting and retaining the diverse and different types of people who power innovation and growth.

Tolerance  -  and openness to diversity and inclusiveness - is not an afterthought or something that happens when communities get rich. It is a key element of the new economic development equation.

USA: LGBT Couples Are More Mixed

USA Map: Less Religion = More Gay Rights

NEW YORK CITY: Celebrity Map

USA: The State Of Gay Marriage

USA: 48 States Now Have Out LGBT Officials

Gay Politics reports:

Last week’s news that Southhaven, Miss., Mayor Greg Davis informed a local newspaper that he is gay means just two U.S. states remain on the list of those with no openly LGBT elected officials–Alaska and South Dakota.
That doesn’t mean these states aren’t served by LGBT elected officials, just that none have self-identified publicly either in speeches or in the media.  But one group that supports out elected officials says there’s a reason this matters.
“It’s important that people know there are LGBT people serving in public office, especially in their own communities.  That doesn’t mean that LGBT issues are front and center in their work.  In some cases just being open and honest about that part of our lives has great potential to deepen understanding of our community, and that makes a huge difference,” said Tiffany Muller, Vice President for Programs at the Victory Institute.
The Victory Institute maintains the most up-to-date database of out LGBT officials available, and in recent years elected officials in states like Kansas, South Carolina, West Virginia and North Dakota have been added.  The group has a goal in 2012 of having identified at least one out elected official in every state in the U.S.  ”That will mark a really significant milestone for LGBT Americans, and it will be a symbol of how far we’ve come as a country,” Muller said.

Map: Canadians On Marriage Equality

Here you’ll see in Yellow those who are against Marriage Equality. Have in mind that in places like the Territory of Nunavut that appear to be extremely against same-sex marriage, are virtually unpopulated.

AFRICA: Gay Oppression Map

USA: Healthiest States

Ranked by United Healthcare has ranked the “healthiest states” according to factors like diet, exercise, smoking, obesity, etc.

USA: Marriage Rights Map

Abortion Laws Of The World

USA: Adoption Rights By State