Gay Marriage Attracting Skilled Workers To Mass.

Posted: March 3, 2008 - 5:00 pm ET

(Boston, Massachusetts) Massachusetts is reaping huge financial gains as a result of same-sex marriage.

The Boston Business Journal reports that the only state in the country to allow gays to marry is become " a powerful lure for same-sex couples who want to live in a place where they can get married, gain legal rights and have access to spousal health benefits."

For decades the state has seen a brain drain despite having some of the most prestigious universities in the nation.

From 2003 to 2005, the population actually fell to 6,429,137 from 6,438,510, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau obtained by the publican.

"Since the marriage law passed, we see a lot more (gay) professionals moving into the Boston area," Henry Hoey, a member of the Greater Boston Business Council, a chamber of commerce for gay professionals told the Journal.

Hoey said that the organization's membership has increased 5 percent to 1,100 members since last year. "The effects of this law are starting to take hold."

Recruitment agencies and other business groups also say they have seen an influx of same-sex couples - mostly professionals.

Attorney Jeffrey Webb and his partner Mark Schuster moved from Los Angeles to Massachusetts in December order to marry.

"That was something that was really important to us," Webb told the Journal.

He is now a partner and practices trial law with a well known Boston-area firm. Schuster is now the chief of general pediatrics and vice chair for health policy research at Children's Hospital Boston.

In 2003 the Supreme Judicial Court, the highest court in Massachusetts, struck down laws banning same-sex marriage and in 2004 the first gay couples began to wed. Since then more than 10,000 gay and lesbian couples have married in the state.