According to a an article by CNN Money on a 2012 survey conducted in consensus with studies by the Census Bureau and Experian (2012, 2013), gays make more money than their straight counterparts.  They also have less debt, higher education, and more equity in their homes.  Gays also have a slightly lower unemployment rate in comparison to the nation as a whole.  According to liberal standards, with an average of $61,500 for gays against the straight average income of $50,054, a straight person makes $0.81 per every dollar a gay person makes.

Gallup, however, found that when interviewed, gays report having less income and less education, and report being less satisfied with their standard of living and economic possibilities than their straight counterparts.  The Gallup survey notes imply that this is due to lack of “equality” in marriage, employment discrimination, and other factors burdening gay Americans.

The CNN article, and a corresponding article by Slate on the subject, both state that the reason for the improved financial stability is due to discrimination against gays, which causes them to be insecure about their financial futures and therefore work harder toward better education, better jobs, better money management, and debt-balancing.  By logical reasoning, being denied a “social safety net” seems to dramatically improve financial security and independence.

Ironically, gay Americans seem to agree with conservatives here, considering that this is precisely the position conservatives take on financial and social independence.  Without government interference, individuals have the capability of growing their skill set based solely on their own will and motivation, building businesses and careers, and managing their finances more strategically.  This level of independence and personal responsibility makes anti-discrimination laws and regulations irrelevant as the individual acts on his own to insure his property, wealth, and career.

Without the obsession for micromanaging every emotion, thought, word, and motivation for all aspects of life to banish any anti-gay view, gays in general would simply be able to design their lives around whatever inconvenient barriers they may face and would use their influence to improve whatever processes they find cumbersome.  They could do all of this with very little opposition since, as I argued previously, conservatives are uninterested in preventing gay people from managing their own legal and financial lives. 

The underlying story here is that despite the clear advantages held by this population, when interviewed, they still identify as victims of their society.  Instead of seeing previous barriers as springboards for entering an era of prosperity where bigotry could not impact them, they choose to marinate in the concept of being an “oppressed minority.”

A business owner, regardless of his beliefs on homosexuality, is unlikely to refuse to hire or actively fire a highly educated, trained, and motivated employee who could vastly improve his profit margin based solely on the applicant's personal life.  The owner, however, would be smart to avoid hiring people who defines themselves solely on their sexuality and who are more likely to cause trouble than to add value by accusing the owner of discrimination at every turn.  The law does not allow the business owner to make that reasonable distinction, and so good gay employees are lumped together with bad ones.  

Income gap analysis is fairly irrelevant in practice, as there are no honest ways to evaluate the worth of one skill set relative to any one business model.  It is true that there is a large gap between wealthy gays and poor gays, but the problem clearly is not workplace or social discrimination.  The existence of a large number of wealthy gays illustrates that with all the tools conservatives routinely encourage as necessary, such as quality and strategic education, debt balance, and personal responsibility, it really does not matter what social category you may fall into.  In contrast, obsessive identity-based regulation, affirmative action, endless lawsuits, focus on inequality, and discrimination laws limit the other portion of gays from succeeding.  A person's worth becomes dependent on how entitled he is to a diversity position in any given scenario.

With ever-rising demands for higher taxes on those above the middle-class line and calls for even higher taxes on the childless in particular, a factor stated to be assisting the current affluence of American gays, this particular population should be very wary of liberal progressivism controlling the country.  The only logical outcome of supporting liberal policies is a shrinking income gap...with the wealthy gays moving closer to the poorer gays.

Is it really a strategic move to support politicians who verbally advocate for same-sex marriage when those same politicians will also advocate for higher penalties for participating in it?  The 2012 Experian survey states: “...when looking at married or partnered gay men, we see that their household incomes are over $21,000 higher, on average, than that of the typical married or partnered heterosexual man.”  The term “married” relied on verbal identification.  It seems fairly clear that marriage is not a good financial move to make under liberal control.

Liberal progressives consider the current level of success, education, and financial stability enjoyed by gays in this survey as negative in principle.  Their views and policies are designed to “equalize” the population, disallowing individual high achievement.

Gays have had more freedom, influence, and success through utilizing conservative principles than they ever had utilizing liberal progressive principles.  It seems obvious that it is in the best interest of the majority of gay people to support conservative policies at both a state and national level.

Supporting an emotionalized social cause may be fulfilling, but it won't pay the mortgage.  What good does it do us to have a laundry list of “gay rights” when we will be barely scraping by with the rest of the population in a decade's time?

Liberalism has gay people protesting in the streets, angrily writing about their collective torment, fighting to deny the rights of those they think oppose them, wallowing in self-pity, and following the path Al Sharpton laid out for blacks a few decades ago.  Gays find more fulfillment in deposing a brilliant tech pioneer for his perceived thoughtcrime than they do in their own financial futures.  More of us are willing to sabotage the very establishment that allows us to succeed for an imaginary victory for “equality!”  Is the goal to stamp out all “hate” across the land, only to sing around trashcans in our collective poverty, secure in the knowledge we are all equal?

Conservatism allows individuals to build the life they choose without limitation.  Liberalism convinces the individual that he is limited as long as he is not part of a collective.  The best choice a gay person can make is to support leadership devoted to removing obstacles (regulations, laws, government), so all people can succeed by their own will rather than support leadership that builds levels for each approved group of people to achieve equally. 

The Slate article referenced poses the question “Are gay people smarter than straight people?” in relation to the better financial and educational choices described.  I would pose a better question: “Are gay conservatives smarter than gay liberals?”  The answer is clear.

Chad Felix Greene (@Chadfelixg) is an author of Jewish children’s books, nonfiction, and social commentary.  www.chadfelixgreene.com