FTT Off-Topic: Liberty For Some

You Get What You Pay For

Not sports, and given the events of the week, I think I get a pass. It's also more than a little cynical. Hope you are sitting down for that.

Unless your devotion to sports is several light years beyond unhealthy, you are probably aware of what happened in the news today. The Supreme Court struck down portions of the Defense Of (Heterosexual Only) Marriage Act, putting the onus on the states and creating a whole new end-game stage to America's rapidly changing cultural landscape. This happened a day after portions of the Voting Rights Act was shut down, which has led many to wonder about the cognitive dissonance involved in taking away rights from one group (minority voters, who will, let's not kid ourselves, find the act of voting a lot harder to do as soon as inhumanly possible), while granting rights to another (gay men and women who want to be treated like, well, adults with property and valid relationships). It's particularly striking when one reads the work of one Antonin Scalia, who would be suffering from whiplash if his neck was not constructed of reptilian tissue.

There is, however, a commonality about this that's a lot less nice and prosaic than the teeth gnashing of Tuesday, and the celebrations of Wednesday (at least on my side), would cover.

And here it is.

I do online advertising for a living. I work on creatives for dozens of clients every month, for hundreds of clients every year, and have probably worked for thousands of clients over the past fifteen years. I know more than I ever thought I would about demographics, household incomes, who spends and how much and on what. I consider myself as something like hired counsel, making the best possible case for whoever is paying the bills that day. I put my whole heart and mind into the exercise. I'm good at what I do. And from all of that experience, I can tell you this, and it's not exactly a secret.

Gay people have, as a general rule of thumb, as much disposable income as any demographic class in the country.

They work in all aspects of life, of course, but they tend towards more education, in more affluent areas. They don't spend as much on childcare, and they spend more on travel, entertainment, dining, clothing, high-end furniture, apparel, etc. It's a heck of a lot easier to make a buck selling to these folks, well, than African-Americans and Hispanics.

They also donate more, at least on a per capita basis, to political campaigns.

So if you want to look at this through the most base possible level...

Rich people, especially those who live in more progressive parts of the country, get rights. (Here's a fun aside: they also get the "right" to use recreational drugs with astoundingly less risk of going to jail. At least unofficially, and if they are white.)

Poor people lose rights.

So, um, yay?