Public opinion: key ingredient in same-sex marriage fight

1. Same sex-marriage used to be politically fatal
2. Passive support for same-sex marriage doubles since 2000s
3. Perceptions of discrimination
4. Active support & the story of how the shift in opinion happened
5. Pulling out the pillars of support
6. 2010-2014: Domino effect
7. Major victories in 2013 & 2015
8. Conclusion

The story of the same-sex marriage fight is well covered in This Is An Uprising, and here it is condensed with both active and passive support on one page simply for clarity of story-telling. Let’s jump in – and you can read Chapter X of _This Is An Uprising _for more of this amazing story.

Same sex-marriage used to be politically fatal

In 1990, in polls, ¾ of Americans responded that gay sex is immoral and less than one-third of Americans condoned same-sex marriage. The Defense of Marriage Act was signed in 1996. And in 2004, conservative strategist Karl Rove saw same-sex marriage as a “potent wedge issue” and pushed for “marriage protection” amendments to be placed on the ballot in 13 states. This resulted in a “coast-to-coast rejection of gay marriage” – and the cause seemed doomed.

Passive support for same-sex marriage doubles since 2000s

A study called “National Trends in Public Opinion on LGBT Rights in the United States”( Andrew Flores, 2014) analyzed over 325 national public opinion surveys on LGBTQ rights issues dating back to June 1977.

The study showed that support for marriage equality in polling had doubled just from the early 2000s to 2014:

So, why did these attitudes change? Flores describes three categories of influences that one can look for in a study like this – paraphrased:

• Age effects– ‘changing your mind on issues as you get older/accumulate experiences’

• Period effects- variations over time periods that affect all groups simultaneously; usually from a change in social, cultural, or physical environments

• Cohort effects- changes across groups of individuals who experience an initial event such as birth or marriage in the same year or years

The real movement breadcrumb here is Flores’ account of what the found effects were:

“The data suggests that intergenerational change is less important than it would popularly seem as the shift in favorable public support has come from people of all ages and ideologies in the US. Period effects explain substantially more of the attitude change, indicating that social and cultural shifts affecting the entire population are responsible for a majority of the change in attitudes [on marriage equality].”

Flores enumerates the change further – remember, this was from 2014 and before the SCOTUS decision:

“Marriage equality is currently among the most important issues in LGBT rights among LGBT people (see Flores and Sherrill N.d.; Pew Research Center 2013). Studies report that the national trends in favor have increased quite quickly (Flores 2014; Silver 2013). About 66% of the over-time change is due to people modifying their preexisting opinions on the issue (Baunach 2011, 2012). This upward trend also corresponds with a number of state and federal courts overturning state laws that ban marriages for same-sex couples. Legalization may actually motivate greater support for marriages equality (Barclay and Flores 2014; Flores and Barclay 2014; Kreitzer, Hamilton, and Tolbert 2014). Public opinion backlash from the courts, which was apparent in Lawrence in 2003 (Egan and Persily 2009), appears to no longer describe how the public responds to the Court.”

Perceptions of discrimination

The figure above “provides results from the 2012 EGSS-IV, which is the most recent study that asked respondents to rate how much discrimination each of the listed groups face. The only other social group that is perceived to face more discrimination than lesbians and gay men are Muslims. A 2013 PRRI survey suggests that the public may perceive lesbians and gay men as facing the most discrimination; with 68 percent of public reporting lesbians and gay men as facing at least a lot of discrimination. This is a 17 percentage point increase in only one year.”

That number can be a movement breadcrumb. We ask ourselves, what is causing this perception that LGBT people arethe most discriminated against?

In the universe of LGBTQ equality, it is also worth noting here the huge jump in people responding that there is “a lot” of discrimination against transgender people – from 33% to 71% from 2011 to 2013. The study didn’t mention any attributions for this, but it is worth noting that Janet Mock’s #GirlsLikeUs campaign started in 2012.

Active support & the story of how the shift in opinion happened

Books have been written about how the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage was won. (And some have been lambasted for being totally off-base).We’re going to tell the short version of the story.

In comparison to the civil rights movement, the same-sex marriage movement has only sparingly used confrontational protest – however, that does not mean the same is true of the broader LGBTQ rights movement. Keep in mind ACT-UP, which staged dramatic actions in the name of the movement to demand the government address the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.

When thinking of same-sex marriage specifically, many see it in retrospect as victories accomplished by individual lawyers and judges. In fact, major court victories came after the social landscape had already been transformed.

Initial, smaller legal victories supported future wins by drawing more attention to cause and establishing record of public support.

In his study, Flores cited Linda Hirshman, author of Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution (2013). She wrote:

“In the real world, before the courts will act, there is almost always some shift in social legitimacy. Civil rights litigation often speeds up the process of social legitimation, because it forces people to take sides in public, but it is almost never the first step.”

As a lawyer in his 30s, Evan Wolfson worked on a legal case in Hawaii that led to landmark rulings in 1993 & 1996 that made same-sex marriage the law of the land on the islands.

However, after Hawaii’s voters approved an amendment to the state constitution in 1998 that reversed these gains, Wolfson became convinced that victory would not be won through legal action alone and that there was a need for “a true campaign that combined political work and public education.”

In 2005, Wolfson & prominent LGBT organizers met in Jersey City to map out a path to securing national same-sex marriage. They believed Supreme Court would have final say, “yet they pushed forward a varied range of fights at the state level to establish a record of public support for the issue.” As described in This Is An Uprising:“They determined, in the words of historian Josh Zeitz, that to make progress in federal courts they ‘would need to tip the scales in their favor by committing to a decades-long campaign to win the hearts and minds of ordinary voters.”

Many of those state wins were the results of grassroots activism.

For example, let’s look at Massachusetts.

In 2003, MA ruled in favor of same-sex marriage in the state – but the work wasn’t over.

Advocates then spent 4 years staving off attempts to reverse judicial decision through constitutional amendment. Led by MassEquality, the state’s largest LGBT rights org, they “built a grassroots coalition of clergy, local business leaders, and small-town notables.” The movement compiled database of all same-sex couples who had married since 2003 ruling, training them as lobbyists and ambassadors.

Similarly over in Maine, canvassers led by young gay activists knocked on 200k doors, sharing personal stories and generating conversations with members of their communities.

Pulling out the pillars of support

We’ve discussed the “pillars of support” concept as weakening the support by different parts of society for the status quo.

Here are some examples of how the same-sex marriage worked to turn each pillar of support towards being in favor of same-sex marriage:

Other forms of active support:

• Petitioning churches to accept same-sex weddings

• Calling for employers to extend health benefits to same-sex partners

• Attending rallies

• Filing lawsuits

• Defending same-sex couples at school proms

• Knocking on doors

• Demonstrating electoral muscle of LGBT voters at the polls

Examples of civil disobedience and mass protest:

• Gavin Newsom in SF violating the law by continuing to officiate gay weddings

• Marches on DC in 2000 and 2009

• Large-scale demonstrations around Prop 8 in California

• Clergy breaking official prohibitions on officiating same-sex weddings

2010-2014: Domino effect

Between 2010-2014, over a dozen states allowed same-sex marriage. Increasingly wins came via legislation and public votes, not just judicial decisions, and legislative decisions may be a more direct barometer of public opinion.

Here are a few examples of wins in that time period:

• June 2011 - New York (legislative process)

• February 2012 - Washington (legislative process)

• March 2012 - Maryland (legislative process)

• November 2012 - Maine, Maryland, Washington become the first states to legalize same-sex marriage by popular vote! (MD & WA confirmed challenges to leg decisions by referendum)

• May 2013 - Rhode Island, Delaware, and Minnesota (legislative process)

• • “Approval in Rhode Island followed a 16-year struggle in the heavily Roman Catholic state, with intense opposition from clerics and many Republicans. But in a sign of the changing times, all five Republicans in the 38-member State Senate supported the measure — the only time in any state where the entire caucus of either party has approved such a measure unanimously — making Rhode Island the latest indication of growing acceptance of same-sex marriage across the country.”
• Nov 2013 - Hawaii and Illinois (legislative process)

2011 - 2012: Politicians evolving

In 2005, only two US Senators, Ron Wyden of OR and Ted Kennedy of MA, were supportive of same-sex marriage.

In 2011, polls showed public support for same-sex marriage to be over 50% for the first time. After majority opinion tipped, more politicians “evolved” on the issue.

On, May 6, 2012, Vice President Joe Biden said he changed position on Meet the Press. Obama followed a few days later & so did many others. Check out this amazing gay-marriage “courage meter” from Salon:

Major victories in 2013 & 2015

In 2013, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was struck down by the Supreme Court. It had been signed into law in 1996 by President Bill Clinton, and it barred federal benefits for same-sex unions recognized by states.

In 2015, the _Obergefell v. Hodges _case in the Supreme Court led to the ruling that guaranteed same-sex couples the right to marry in all states – even those that had previously barred same-sex marriage.

Conclusion

From _This Is An Uprising _by Mark and Paul Engler:

“To focus solely on the transactional details of the individual court cases, ballot initiatives, and legislative maneuvers that came at the conclusion of the struggle is to miss a key point: these fights took place in a landscape that had already been transformed...Part of the process of transformational change is that once the issue has won, its righteousness becomes common sense. After this happens, people will commonly deny that the change was ever a big deal to begin with.”