Thousands of visitors roll into New Orleans this week for Southern Decadence: five days of celebration of gay culture in a city now being promoted by tourism officials as a honeymoon site for same-sex newlyweds — despite the state’s constitutional ban on gay marriage.
“It just shows the dichotomy between what business knows in the state and what our political leaders think,” said gay rights activist John Hill. “Obviously, the business community in New Orleans knows that the gay travel market, the honeymoon destination, is a big market.”