Jordan Halgas and her students got a lesson in Constitutional law while studying same-sex marriages and the impact they would have on California businesses were they to become legal.
Jordan Halgas almost let one of her most significant teaching moments slip by.
Two years ago the business law professor’s students were buzzing with the news of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s decision to allow same-sex couples to legally marry. Until that time, same-sex couples could only enter into Domestic Partnerships under California law.
“We had a class discussion about it for a short time, but then I would steer the discussion back to what I’d planned for class that day,” Halgas says. “Then it kept coming up. The students obviously were fired up about it and interested in it, so I decided to have a class debate about same-sex marriages.”
Through the debate, the students had a substantive lesson in constitutional law. “Refusing same-sex couples the right to legally marry is a denial of Due Process and Equal Protection,” Halgas says.
“The value in the lesson was that the students had to argue their position without their emotions getting in the way. They could debate it only from a purely legal point of view.”
The class discussion led Halgas to further research the issue and look at the implications same-sex marriage would have on businesses. She found that same-sex marriage would not impose a negative impact on businesses—in fact, she discovered just the opposite.
“The vast majority of small businesses would not experience any increase in their health care costs if same-sex marriages were legalized,” Halgas says. “In addition, if same-sex marriage was lawful, such marriages would result in gains to California’s state budget of $22.5 to $25.2 million a year, as well as an increase in tourism dollars—a possible increase of $100 million per year—and $10 million per year in sales taxes. There would also be a tremendous boom in the wedding industry.”
In the end, Halgas was pleased that she and her students had the experience they did. “I’m glad I didn’t put the subject to rest,” she says. “Not only did the students and I enjoy the debate and research, but we all learned so much from it. As a professor, what more can you ask for?”
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