A new “working paper” (a preliminary scientific/technical paper) from Emory University, “The Effects of Same-Sex Marriage Laws on Public Health and Welfare,” by economists Andrew M. Francis, Hugo M. Mialon, and Handie Peng (links to the complete study available on metafilter), attempts to “analyze the relationships among same-sex marriage bans, social attitudes, and measures of public health and welfare” and gets some pretty interesting results.

Mialon and Francis are old hats in this particular field because  last year they did a study which linked gay marriage bans to rising HIV rates.

If you attempt to read the whole thing with no prior knowledge of “economics” or understanding of statistics, you will feel — as I did — that this study may or may not be important. In any event, it’s pretty interesting stuff regardless.

This was their conclusion:

“Using micro- and state-level data and a variety of estimation techniques, we find evidence that same-sex marriage bans reduced tolerance for gays and increased the syphilis rate, a rough proxy for risky homosexual behavior. Moreover, we find some evidence that same-sex marriage bans reduced tolerance for non-marital sex and reduced abortion and teen pregnancy rates, although the effect on teen pregnancy appears very short-lived. We found no consistent evidence that same-sex marriage bans impacted marriage or divorce rates.”

Specifically:

– Same-sex marriage bans tend to lower tolerance for gays by about 22 percentage points. This is key, because it reflects the trickle-down idea we’re so obsessed with — that legislated discrimination fosters a rich environment for micro-level discrimination across the board. It’s the government’s stamp of approval on the idea that Gays Aren’t Like Us.

– Same-sex marriage bans lower tolerance for premarital and teen sex by roughly 9 and 8 percentage points. I don’t know if that’s supposed to be negative or not.

– Findings suggest that men are less likely than women to be tolerant of homos but are more likely than women to be tolerant of premarital and teen sex. Also, gay tolerance rises steadily with education.

The rest of the paper is a bit too statisticy for a layperson to understand, but these are the conclusions:

– Using individual-level data, we found that same-sex marriage bans lowered societal tolerance for non-marital sex, especially sex between two persons of the same gender, indicating that such laws may signal socially-acceptable and socially-unacceptable behaviors, magnify the stigma associated with same-sex partnerships, and convey information regarding the prevalence of intolerance in society.

– Using state panel data, we found evidence that same-sex marriage bans increased syphilis, a rough proxy for risky homosexual behavior, perhaps by fostering intolerant attitudes toward gays and increasing the stigma associated with homosexuality. This finding may be important because risky homosexual behavior may also be a factor underlying the spread of HIV.

– Furthermore, we found evidence consistent with the view that same-sex marriage bans raised the social benefits of heterosexual marriage as well as the social costs of non-marital sex by codifying traditional family norms and signaling the prevalence of traditional family values. Our estimates suggest that bans may have lowered the abortion rate and may have decreased the teen pregnancy rate, although the latter effect may have only been temporary. There was no evidence that bans impacted the marriage rate and little evidence that they lowered the divorce rate.

So basically, when people lean liberal on one issue (same-sex marriage and relationships) they also tend to lean liberal on other issues, like sex before marriage and “traditional family values.”

Sidenote? Hugo M. Mialon has done some pretty interesting research in his day, including a paper entitled “Sinful Indulgences, Soft Substitutes and Self-Control” (For several harmful goods (e.g., junk food and cigarettes), less-harmful substitutes are available (e.g., light cigarettes and reduced-fat junk food). We develop a simple individual-decision model to analyze the effects of less-harmful substitutes on consumption and health outcomes) and, more recently, the the economics of faking orgasms.] Andrew Francis has done a good deal of research on LGBTQ issues as well.

Also in case you forgot, Obama “is ready to let gays die for America, but not marry.”

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