There was an episode of South Park in which copious amounts of “smug” were being created and the city which the creators had no hesitation in casting as the producer of all that “smug” was San Francisco. The city’s residents do often seem to perceive themselves as setting the standards in progressiveness for the rest of the nation to follow. But on one front it would seem that the Midwestern state of Iowa has trumped San Francisco and California, much to the chagrin of its gay residents.
Iowa last week ruled that it was a violation of the rights of gay couple to ban same sex marriage and so the Iowa Supreme Court ruling places Iowa in very limited company along with Massachusetts and Connecticut as one of only three states currently where same sex marriage is now legal. In San Francisco, gay marriage is currently banned.
California in general, and San Francisco specifically, is well aware of the economic benefits which would come as a result of gay wedding tourism, but proposition eight on last year’s ballot took the air out of that possibility. So for now, many who might otherwise have been taking San Francisco tours and bolstering the local economy have been diverted to the great state of Iowa for their matrimonial spending bliss, a destination which until last week, likely wasn’t even on the radar of gays, tourists, or gay tourists, and especially not the smug gay San Francisco tourists.
