With the addition of New York this week, six states permit gay marriage. Looking at the data, those states that permit gay marriage are growing more slowly than the rest of the country.
Below are the population growth rate between 2000 and 2010 for those states that permit gay marriage. Data from the 2010 census.
Connecticut: 4.9%
Iowa: 4.1%
Massachusetts: 3.1%
New Hampshire: 6.5%
New York: 2.1%
Vermont: 2.8%
Additionally, Washington, D.C. permits gay marriage.
District of Columbia: 5.2%.
In contrast, the United States population grew 9.7% between 2000 and 2010. Every singe state that allows gay marriage has grown more slowly than average.
Now, I don’t imply that gay marriage reduces a state’s growth rate, though that could be a logical conclusion because heterosexual couples are much more likely to reproduce. Nevertheless, I think the number of people in the LGBT community is too small to effect the population number to that extent.
Instead, it is the other policies of the liberal states, especially their tax policies, that drive migration between states. Notice how low-tax New Hampshire was the fastest growing of all the states listed above. It is the overall effect of liberal policies that are driving people out of these states into more conservative states.