A little over two weeks ago (right before the start of Pride Month, actually), the Nevada Legislature overrode the Governor’s veto of a bill to create a domestic partnership registry, making Nevada the 17th state in the country to formally recognize the relationships of gay men and lesbians.
So, why is this relevant to our blog when we don’t normally address state legislative initiatives? Because of the way in which this measure became law. The Nevada legislature had originally passed the bill, but the governor vetoed it. His veto was overridden specifically because of pressure from the state’s tourism industry which successfully made the case that refusing to pass the legislation would harm the state’s reputation among LGBT people and likely drastically impact tourism, perhaps even leading to a gay boycott of the state.
Harrah’s Entertainment Senior Vice President Jan Jones (the former mayor of Las Vegas and former chairwoman of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority) made the point in a letter to state legislators (as quoted in the Las Vegas-Review Journal) urging them to support the bill:
"Our state cannot afford to lose any more revenue to other destinations because of a reputation as a place which is not socially or politically the right place to do business or to vacation," Jones stated in the letter, dated Tuesday…"Our company does aggressive marketing to this community," Jones said Wednesday. "How can we say to them 'we want your business, but we don't care about your rights.'"
Does this sound familiar? If you’ve been reading this blog for a long time, it probably does. In my first blog post here, I made the point that gay and lesbian communications had a role to play in effecting social change:
“You should care about gay and lesbian marketing and communications for one simple reason: because it presents one of the biggest opportunities to positively affect the future of the LGBT community. Public opinion changes as society evolves. Society evolves as it considers different people with new outlooks and varied points of view. Public relations and marketing communications change how people see us (or even that they see us at all) and that leads to social change”.
And I used examples to prove my point about what I called the “politics of commerce” including this one:
“Check out the convention and visitors bureaus of many major cities (including Washington, D.C., where I live) and you’ll find gay tourism programs: gay travel and tourism promotion helps make the case for the value of the gay dollar; this in turn can help sway politicians to oppose gay marriage bans and other divisive issues because they understand that such intolerant views could cost them local tax revenue from tourism.”
While I was initially tempted to say “I told you so,” I think it’s more appropriate to say “thank you.” Thank you to Ms. Jones and to all of the folks in Nevada who provided real world proof of the power of gay and lesbian communications. We are a viable, valuable audience and the recognition of that fact demonstrates the impact gay and lesbian communications can have on positive social and political change.
What do you think? Do you know of similar examples in which the role of gay and lesbian communications had an impact on social or political change? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.
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