Gays Draw Attention of Retailers: It may be too soon to dub 2002 as the year e-commerce sites devoted themselves to America's 16.5 million gays and lesbians. But an increasing number of online executives are paying close attention to this group, for reasons that become obvious after only a cursory glance at its demographic profile. Not only do gay and lesbian Internet users tend to be more affluent and more highly educated than their straight counterparts, according to Internet executives and research firms. They also have considerably more discretionary income, since they typically have fewer children at home. (NY Times, registration required)

Oh, for the love of ....

Doesn't the Times do ANY research? (Or, for that matter, editing. That first sentence is a dangling clause. Tsk. But I digress.)
As I have said before: Gay affluence is a myth. A myth that far too many people are terribly attached to. Retailers like the idea of marketing to the affluent and upscale, no matter who they are. Gays like the idea of being thought urbane and well-off -- "See? We make it in spite of you!". And the bigoted like the idea because they can say, "Hey, they're doing better than everyone else. Why do they need any more help?"

Which would be fine, but every single part of each of those arguments is a lie. Fewer gays are likely to be affluent and upscale, and lesbians are fairly likely to be outright poor. Being thought of as incredibly well-off is not helpful to any cause; it just makes retailers recognize us as a market. (And, to be frank, there's relatively little that needs marketing directly to gays and lesbians.)
To be sure, the Times article is only reporting on what other companies are doing. But you'd think that on occasion, when running a thoroughly unnecessary piece like this, they might do enough research to point out that the companies are following their lemming instinct based on information that is, at the very least, incomplete, and more likely completely inaccurate.