arguments in two cases challenging legal restrictions on same-sex
marriage. Proponents and opponents sought to cudgel one another
with sociological and psychological studies aiming to prove that
science is on their side. In slightly different version of this
article that originally appeared the Wall Street Journal's
Ideas Market, Reason Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey
parses the data on same-sex marriage, divorce, children, and
monogamy.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two
cases challenging legal restrictions on same-sex marriage.
Proponents and opponents sought to cudgel one another with
sociological and psychological studies aiming to prove that science
is on their side. Well, what does the science say?
Impact on Traditional Marriage
Some opponents told the court that same-sex marriage will
undermine conventional marriage among heterosexuals. So what do the
data say about how legalizing gay marriages affects conventional
marriages?
A 2009 study by University of Sherbrooke economist Mircea
Trandafir investigated the effect
of the legalization of same-sex marriage in the Netherlands,
the first country to recognize same-sex marriage. In 1998, the
Dutch created registered partnerships, which are open to all
couples, and in 2001 a law allowing full same-sex marriages. His
analysis found that same-sex marriage leads to a decline in the
different-sex marriage rate, but not in the different-sex union
(marriage plus registered partnership) rate. In other words, Dutch
heterosexual couples are taking advantage of the “marriage lite”
registered partnership alternative.
At the time of Prof. Trandafir’s study, the chief difference
between registered partnerships and marriage was that the former
could be dissolved at the civil registry by mutual agreement. In a
2012 West Virginia Law Review article, Mercer School of
Law professor Scott Titshaw shows that the political compromises
provoked by the initial
refusals to extend full marriage rights to same-sex couples
result in a proliferation of civil union alternatives. Prof.
Titshaw agrees with Prof. Trandafir that different-sex couples
increasingly find the new marriage alternatives attractive; in
effect, refusing to give full legal recognition to same-sex couples
ends up diminishing the status and benefits associated with
conventional marriage for everyone. Ironically, conservatives by
opposing the extension of full marriage rights to gay people have
ended up weakening the institution they sought to protect.
The Divorce Rate
Sweden legalized same-sex civil unions in 1995 and gay marriage
in 2009. A 2011 demographic study from researchers at the
University of Stockholm reports that since 1999, after decades of
falling, both the marriage rate and the
fertility rate have trended upward and the divorce rate is
down.
Massachusetts was the first state to legalize same-sex marriage
in 2004. In 2003, the divorce rate in Massachusetts was 2.5 per
1,000 residents, and it fell to 1.9 by 2009. The Massachusetts
marriage rate jumped 15 percent in 2004, as many same-sex couples
chose to get married, but since has remained stable. Interestingly,
the states that permit same-sex marriage tend to have lower divorce
rates than those that ban same-sex marriage.
A 2004 study of registered partnerships in Sweden reported that
gay male couples were 50 percent more likely to divorce than
were heterosexual couples. Lesbian couples were nearly three times
more likely to divorce than were heterosexual couples.
 But how salient are higher divorce rates among gays and
lesbians for making public policy? Consider that a 2008 study in
the journal Family Relations by Rice University
sociologist Jenifer Bratter found that in the U.S.
black-husband/white-wife marriages were
twice as likely to end in divorce as white/white couples, and
Asian-husband/white-wife couples were 59percent more likely. Yet
few would argue that interracial marriages should be prohibited
because their children are at substantially greater risk of
experiencing the social, psychological, and economic disadvantages
stemming from a higher interracial divorce rate.
Having Kids
Nearly 20 percent of
same-sex households—i.e., 115,000—reported having children, and
84 percent contained children biologically related to one of the
householders. In comparison, 94 percent of different-sex married
couple households with children reported living with their own
children. A study issued in February by the Williams Institute, a
gay public-policy think tank at the law school of the University of
California, Los Angeles, reports that 37 percent of “lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender” (LGBT) adults have had a child at some
time in their lives. In addition, the report notes that as many as
six million American children and adults have an LGBT
parent.
 Opponents and proponents of same-sex marriage spar
fiercely over the data about how children fare in same-sex
households. On March 21, when the American Academy of Pediatricians
issued a
statement in favor of same-sex civil marriage, the group also
published a technical report that comprehensively looked at the
available research on the well-being of children living in same-sex
households. The report noted that a big problem with current
research is the small sample sizes of many of the studies. An
additional problem is that most of the children in these studies
have been through divorce before living in a same-sex household.
Divorce is well known to have deleterious effects on the well-being
of children.
However, data are reassuring from the National Longitudinal
Lesbian Family Study, which includes 78 lesbian families who used
donor sperm to have children and have been followed since the
1980s. A 2012 study compared quality-of-life measurements of
adolescents from lesbian families with those from a matched set
of adolescents raised in different-sex homes. The researchers
reported that “adolescents reared by lesbian mothers from birth do
not manifest more adjustment difficulties (e.g., depression,
anxiety, and disruptive behaviors) than those reared by
heterosexual parents.”
 By the time that their children were age 17, some 55
percent of the lesbian couples had separated compared to 36 percent
of heterosexual couples in the National Survey of Family Growth.
However, children from separated lesbian couples don’t appear to
manifest the social and psychological problems often found among
children whose heterosexual parents are divorced. The better scores
achieved by the children of lesbians, the researchers point out
might result from the fact that 75 percent of the separated lesbian
couples shared custody, whereas 65 percent of divorced heterosexual
mothers had sole custody of their children.
 A 2010 study in the periodical Demography by
Stanford University sociologist Michael Rosenfeld parsed Census
data to compare the school progress of children
reared in same-sex, heterosexual, and single parent families.
He reported that “children raised by same-sex couples have no
fundamental deficits in making normal progress through school.”
Adoption Outcomes
A 2012 study by UCLA researchers involving 82 families (60
heterosexual, 15 gay, and 7 lesbian) who
adopted high-risk children from foster care found that on
average, children in both same-sex and different-sex households
“showed significant gains of approximately 10 IQ points in their
cognitive development and maintained stable levels of behavior
problems that were not clinically significant.”
The researchers noted that these findings were especially
remarkable because the children adopted by same-sex couples were
generally higher risk and often of a different ethnicity than those
adopted by heterosexual couples. The bottom line is that research
on the effects of being reared by same-sex parents on children is
certainly not perfect, but the AAP seems right when it concluded
that despite research “imperfections, it is likely that the
extensive research efforts that have been carried out would have
documented serious and significant damages if they existed.”
Monogamy
Research suggests one salient difference between same-sex,
especially gay male couples, and different-sex couples relates to
the acceptability of sex with people outside of the relationship. A
2010 study by University of Toronto sociologist Adam Isaiah Green
in the Canadian Journal of Sociology involving 30 same-sex married
couples around Toronto found that two-thirds of same-sex spouses
(40 percent female, 60 percent male) did
not believe marriage needed always to be monogamous. In fact,
nearly half of male same-sex spouses (47 percent) had an explicit
agreement that allowed for non-monogamy. In comparison, the
General Social
Survey reported in 2010 that
19 percent of men and 14 percent of women they had been
unfaithful at some point during their marriages.
My reading of the scientific literature as it currently stands
is that the legalization of same sex marriage does not have major
effects on marriage trends in the wider society. As ever greater
numbers of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans have
exited the closet, more straight Americans have come to know and
accept their homosexual family members, friends, and colleagues. It
is this personal data, not the dueling studies published in obscure
social science journals, that have now persuaded a majority of Americans
in recent polls to support same sex marriage.
A slightly different version of this article originally appeared
at the Wall Street Journal's Ideas Market.
Disclosure: My wife and I have supported Equality Virginia
for a number of years.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said Sunday that he thought it was "inevitable" a future Republican presidential candidate would offer support for same-sex marriage.
"I think that’s inevitable. There will be one and he will receive bipartisan support — or she will. So I think that the answer is yes," Flake said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
When host Chuck Todd asked Flake about his own views on gay marriage, Flake said those hadn't changed. Republican Sen. Rob Portman made news earlier in March by becoming the first sitting Republican Senator to offer support for gay marriage.
"I can't," Flake said, when asked if he could ever imagine shifting his views. "I tell you, in the past I’ve supported repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I’ve supported the [Employment] Nondiscrimination Act. But I hold to the traditional definition of marriage."
Watch the clip below, via NBC:
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Please follow Politics on Twitter and Facebook.
Join the conversation about this story »
NEW YORK -- However the Supreme Court rules after its landmark hearings on same-sex marriage, the issue seems certain to divide Americans and states for many years to come.
In oral arguments Tuesday and Wednesday on two cases involving gay couples' rights, the justices left open multiple options for rulings that are expected in June. But they signaled there was no prospect of imposing a 50-state solution at this stage. With nine states now allowing same-sex marriages and other states banning them via statutes or constitutional amendments, that means a longer spell with a patchwork marriage-rights map – and no early end to bruising state-by-state battles in the courts, in the legislatures and at the ballot box.
News that Snoop Dogg had taken a smoker's sabbatical from West Coast party rap was met with a healthy skepticism, bemusement and even derision when it first started making its way around the web last summer. But now, Snoop has settled into his newest incarnation: Snoop Lion, a peace-loving, violence-hating reggae artist who claims to be a descendent of Bob Marley.
His transformation was the subject of "Reincarnated," a VICE documentary that traced the 41-year-old rapper's trip to Jamaica and subsequent cultural baptism. The film offers a fresh look at Snoop, best known for hits like "Ain't No Fun" and "Drop It Like It's Hot," and makes up what it may lack in cohesion with tender glimpses at a man who appears to be pondering his place in the world.
The result of said introspection is a reggae album produced by Major Lazer and also titled "Reincarnated." The record features songs like "No Guns Allowed," on which Snoop teams with his daughter Cori B. and Drake for an anti-arms statement that the Snoop of 15 years ago would have bristled at.
A quick survey of the press coverage of yesterday's oral
arguments in the California gay marriage case reveals multiple
appearances of the word punt. Politico
asked, “Will Supreme Court Punt on Gay Marriage?” The
Village Voice
announced, “Supreme Court Hears Arguments Against California's
Same-Sex Marriage Ban, Punts.” Townhall.com
observed, “Early Indications: SCOTUS to Punt on Gay
Marriage?”
Let’s assume the Supreme Court does indeed avoid reaching the
constitutional question of whether or not Prop. 8’s ban on gay
marriage violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th
Amendment. What happens then?
One possibility is that the Supreme Court rules solely on
procedural grounds. Under this scenario, the Court would find that
the supporters of the original Prop. 8 ballot initiative have no
legal standing to defend the law in court, thereby voiding the
decision last year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit
that did recognize their standing and then struck down Prop. 8.
But that approach raises several new questions of its own. Does
District Court Judge Vaughn Walker’s earlier ruling against Prop. 8
remain in force (since the state of California, which has standing,
was still defending the law at that point in the litigation)? If
so, does that mean gay marriage is legal in California? Or does it
mean Judge Walker’s ruling applies narrowly, impacting only the
specific same-sex couples that brought the original suit?
Alternately, the Supreme Court might follow the lead of Justice
Anthony Kennedy. During Tuesday’s oral arguments, Kennedy
repeatedly suggested the Supreme Court should never have accepted
the Prop. 8 case in the first place. “I just wonder,” Kennedy said
at one point, “if the case was properly granted.” Later he raised
the issue yet again, telling the lawyer who was arguing in defense
of Prop. 8, “you might address why you think we should take and
decide this case.”
If Kennedy can convince four other justices that the Court was
in fact wrong to take the case, the Supreme Court might engage in a
maneuver that lawyers refer to as a “DIG.” That is, the Court would
dismiss the Prop. 8 case as "improvidently granted." This unusual
approach would leave the 9th Circuit’s ruling against Prop. 8 in
effect, thereby leaving gay marriage legal in California while the
Court remained silent on the issue for the other 49 states.
Finally, as Tom Goldstein observes
at SCOTUSblog, the Court could even rope in its forthcoming
decision on the Defense of Marriage Act in order to avoid ruling on
Prop. 8. As Goldstein writes:
the Court is going to address laws discriminating against
same-sex couples in the pending Windsor challenge to
DOMA. That could be a basis for declining to decide
Hollingsworth [Prop. 8]. Perhaps more likely, any
member of the Court could vote to vacate and remand the judgment in
Hollingsworth for further consideration in light of
Windsor. In that scenario, five members of the Court
could agree to vacate the Ninth Circuit’s decision on alternative
grounds (some concluding that the petitioners lacked standing and
others concluding that the court of appeals should rethink its
decision in light of whatever the Court holds in
Windsor).
Whatever the Supreme Court ultimately decides to do in the Prop.
8 case, Tuesday’s oral arguments
suggest that a sweeping endorsement of gay marriage in all 50
states is not likely to be included on the menu of options.
"This week is not going to be the sweeping victory for gay
rights that many supporters and advocates hoped for," says
Reason.com's Damon W.
Root. "However, I think the Defense of Marriage Act is in
trouble, which is definitely a win for gay rights." Root, who
writes frequently about legal issues, attended both days
of oral arguments at the Supreme Court this week for two cases
pertaining to same-sex marriage.
Today's case, United States v. Windsor, looks at
whether the Defense Marriage Act (DOMA) violates the Fifth
Amendment's guarantee of equal protection. Signed by President Bill
Clinton in 1996, the law denies federal marriage benefits to
same-sex couples.
"What we saw today," says Root, "was Justice Kennedy really
ready to strike down the law as an overreach of federal power, and
many of the liberal justices ready to go right along with him."
Root sat down with Reason magazine's Katherine
Mangu-Ward to discuss what today's proceedings—and yesterday's
arguments in Hollingsworth v. Perry, which looked at the
constitutionality of California's ban on same-sex marriage—mean for
gay rights and personal freedoms.
About 5.30 minutes. Camera by Jim Epstein and Joshua Swain,
and edited by Epstein.
Scroll down for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason TV's YouTube
Channel to receive automatic updates when new material goes
live.
An 83-year-old widow with a huge tax bill is the perfect person to bring down an anti-gay law Bill Clinton signed in 1996.
Edith Windsor started her own crusade to bring down the Defense of Marriage Act, the Clinton-era law that says the federal government doesn't recognize same-sex marriage.
The Supreme Court will hear Windsor's DOMA challenge today, in a case that could give federal benefits to same-sex couples in the nine states where gay marriage is legal.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard a related gay marriage case over California's gay marriage ban Proposition 8. The justices hinted that they might decide not to rule on the Prop 8 case at all.
But gay marriage activists are optimistic about a victory in the DOMA case since a couple of the court's swing voters will likely want the federal government to defer to states' own definitions of marriage.
The plaintiff whose story they'll hear today is a particularly compelling one. Unlike plaintiffs in many cases, Windsor wasn't hand-picked by lawyers to be the face of a legal battle.
Instead, she went out looking for lawyers to help her bring down DOMA because she was so incensed by the law, her lawyer Roberta Kaplan tells Business Insider.
By doing so, she started a case that evolved "the natural way where someone is truly indignant about what happened to them," says Kaplan, a corporate lawyer with Paul Weiss.
Windsor is an accomplished woman the Supreme Court's justices might be able to identify with, The New Yorker's Amy Davidson has pointed out. She's only a few years older than several of the justices and had an impressive career. (She was a systems engineer at IBM.)
She's also faced discrimination from the federal government. Windsor began to feel the effects of DOMA when her partner Thea Spyer died in 2007.
Because the IRS didn't recognize their marriage performed in Canada, Windsor had to pay $363,000 in taxes on Spyer's estate that a straight spouse wouldn't have had to pay.
Kaplan will argue today that the tax bill and the law that allowed it are unfair before the Supreme Court.
Windsor initially asked not-for-profit legal groups to argue her case, but they said it wasn't the right time, according to Kaplan. Kaplan felt differently when she and Windsor were introduced by a mutual friend.
"The minute I heard the facts of the case, it took me about three seconds to decide that it was absolutely the right case to bring," says Kaplan, whose firm took the case on free of charge.
Windsor's case involved a very specific injury that everyone can relate to: an unfair tax bill.
"Every American gets in their gut what it means to have to pay a huge tax bill where you wouldn't have to pay the same tax bill if you weren't gay. Everyone understands what that means," Kaplan says.
Windsor's age also makes her an ideal candidate to bring down DOMA. It will be easier to strike down DOMA if the Supreme Court rules the law must face "heightened scrutiny" because it impacts people who've endured a history of discrimination.
For Windsor, discrimination isn't "theoretical," Kaplan tells us. Windsor's brief to the Supreme Court chronicled her own "life in the shadows," as Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSBlog reported.
When she fell in love with Spyer nearly 50 years ago, the brief noted, it was a “a time when lesbians and gay men risked losing their families, friends, and livelihoods if their sexual orientation became known."
If the Supreme Court strikes down DOMA, same-sex couples in the nine states where gay marriage is legal will know the federal government now recognizes the legitimacy of their relationships. They'll also get benefits they didn't get before. If one spouse dies, the other could take his or her social security if it's more money. They won't have to pay estate taxes.
The repeal of DOMA could, in fact, have a very real impact on a lot of people. But one woman's story could help convince the Supreme Court to do away with the law.
Throughout preparations for the case, Kaplan, the lawyer who's telling that story, has kept a post-it note on her desk that's a variation of Bill Clinton's successful 1992 campaign phrase:
"It's all about Edie, stupid," the note reads.
SEE ALSO: The Worst Case Scenario For People Who Oppose Gay Marriage
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Join the conversation about this story »
Washington, D.C.—The Supreme Court heard oral argument
today on California’s 2008 ballot initiative Proposition 8, which
amended the state constitution in order to forbid gay marriage. The
upshot appears to be that while a majority of the Court believes
Prop. 8 to be misguided, including both the four liberal justices
and Justice Anthony Kennedy, those justices are not willing to
strike Prop. 8 down as unconstitutional and therefore legalize gay
marriage in all 50 states. As Justice Kennedy declared in perhaps
the most significant statement of the morning, this case asks the
Court “to go into uncharted waters.”
Kennedy’s comments are certain to disappoint gay marriage
advocates. As the author of the Court’s rulings in both Romer
v. Evans (1996) and Lawrence v. Texas (2003), Kennedy
is one of the Court’s strongest voices in favor of gay rights. Yet
he gave no indication this morning that he saw the case against
Prop. 8 as a proper vehicle for establishing a sweeping win for gay
marriage. In addition to referring to the “odd” rationale of the
federal appellate court ruling against Prop. 8, Kennedy wondered
whether the Supreme Court should have even agreed to hear the Prop.
8 case in the first place. “I just wonder,” Kennedy said, “if the
case was properly granted.”
For the Court’s liberals, on the other hand, the main impediment
to legalizing gay marriage nationwide appeared to be the question
of jurisdiction. Because the state of California announced that it
would no longer defend Prop. 8 in court, the law’s legal defense
was taken up by a group of individuals who had supported the
original ballot initiative. So in addition to the constitutionality
of Prop. 8, the Supreme Court also considered today whether or not
those ballot supporters possessed the legal standing to defend the
law.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg set the skeptical tone right from
the outset. “Have we ever granted standing to proponents of ballot
initiatives?,” she asked, knowing that the answer would be “no.”
Justice Elena Kagan promptly followed up. “Could the State assign
to any citizen the rights to defend a judgment of this kind?” she
questioned, her tone suggesting that she thought not. Chief Justice
John Roberts also voiced skepticism, declaring at one point, “a
State can’t authorize anyone to proceed in federal court...I don’t
think we’ve ever allowed anything like that.”
Taken together, the combination of Kennedy’s hesitation about
entering “uncharted waters” and the apparent liberal consensus on
standing means the Court is unlikely to rule on the constitutional
merits of Prop. 8 and will instead limit its decision to the
particular circumstances present in California. That may still mean
the legalization of gay marriage in the Golden State, but the
ruling won’t go any further than that.
Watch Matt Welch interview Damon Root on today's oral
argument:
oral arguments today in a case about the Clinton-era Defense of
Marriage Act (DOMA), which was a pro-active attempt to squelch
same-sex marriage, Iowahawk offers up three reasons to support
marriage equality:
First, I'm against restrictions on adults entering into
voluntary contracts. Second, I see no reason why broadening the
definition of marriage to same-sex couples devalues or diminishes
mine. Finally, there's the purely utilitarian Gilligan's Island
effect: if Skipper and Professor decide to wed in a tasteful
lagoon-side ceremony, I've got Ginger and Mary Ann to myself at the
wedding luau. And if it's Mary Ann and Ginger hooking up, well...
I'll be in my bunk.
Read the whole thing
over at Breitbart.
And for god's sake, follow Iowahawk (Dave Buerge) on Twitter; his
feed is one of the best.
Although the U.S. Supreme Court appeared extremely divided this
morning over the legality of California’s ban on gay marriage, the
justices did exhibit widespread agreement on one point: None of
them seemed to find the Obama administration’s position on Prop. 8
to be very convincing.
In the brief submitted earlier this month, the Obama
administration called for the nullification of the gay marriage
bans now in place in California and the seven other states that
forbid gay marriage while allowing civil unions. According to the
government, this differential treatment is an unconstitutional
deprivation of equal protection. In other words, it’s
unconstitutional for a state to recognize civil unions while not
recognizing same-sex marriage. The federal government took no
position on those states that offer neither civil unions nor gay
marriage.
Unfortunately for the president, that argument appeared to find
little traction during this morning’s oral arguments, as evinced by
these comments made by the justices in response to the Obama
administration’s position:
Justice Ginsburg: “So a State that has made considerable
progress has to go all the way, but at least the Government's
position is, if it has...done absolutely nothing at all, then...it
can do -- do as it will.”
Justice Breyer: “A State that does nothing hurts them much more,
and yet your brief seems to say it's more likely to be justified
under the Constitution. I'd like to know with some specificity how
that could be.”
Justice Sotomayor: “General [Verrilli], there is an irony in
that, which is the States that do more have less rights.”
Chief Justice Roberts: “You saying it's got to happen right now
in California, but you don't even have a position about whether
it's required in the rest of the country.”
Read more about this morning's Prop. 8 arguments
here. Read Reason's coverage of Prop. 8 here.
The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to hear two huge gay marriage cases this week involving the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act and California's gay marriage ban Proposition 8. The court's decision even to consider same-sex marriage symbolizes just how much America has evolved on gay rights in an unbelievably short period of time. Back in 2004, my gay friends in Brooklyn, N.Y. used to have debates about whether it was the "right" time to fight for same-sex marriage. Massachusetts had become the first state to legalize gay marriage in 2003. The following year, then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome became something of a gay hero when he ordered the city clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. A few days after Newsome's bold move, Jason West, then mayor of the small town of New Paltz, N.Y. got cheers from gay New Yorkers when he started performing same-sex marriages in the Village Hall. It seemed like a backlash might be coming, though. I remember one lesbian friend pointing out that she obviously couldn't be "against" gay marriage. But she wondered why activists weren't focusing on what she believed were more attainable goals — like making sure gay teens didn't get beaten up in school. Her unease wasn't unfounded. A huge backlash did come in 2004, when 13 states amended their state Constitutions to officially ban same-sex marriage. That year, just 31 percent of Americans were in favor of gay marriage, according to the Pew Research Center for People and the Press. America has changed dramatically since 2004. Now, less than a decade later, 58 percent of Americans support gay marriage, according to an ABC/Washington Post poll. Dozens of people and organizations have filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the Supreme Court to support gay marriage — from prominent Republicans to two heterosexual NFL players to 70 major corporations to the Obama administration. It was just 1986 — in my lifetime — that the Supreme Court upheld a law in my home state of Georgia that criminalized consensual gay sex. So, what's changed? For one thing, it seems like more and more people feel comfortable coming out of the closet these days (including likeable celebrities like Anderson Cooper, Ellen Degeneres, and Cynthia Nixon of "Sex and the City"). The other thing that's changed is the push for marriage equality itself. The New York Times' Linda Greenhouse argues that the Proposition 8 case in particular has been "speeding and enhancing public understanding and support for marriage equality." That support for marriage equality, in turn, is a sign that anti-gay bias in America is finally starting to subside. Openly gay New York Times columnist Frank Bruni once wrote that people who oppose gay marriage do so because they see gays as "lesser people." "If how we love is suspect, then so is who we are," he wrote. The opposite is also true. The surge of public support for gay marriage is a sign that more Americans now see gays as equal. In 2013, I still know some unconventional gay couples who might choose not to get married. But every single gay person I know believes same-sex marriage is worth fighting for. That's because the battle to repeal the anti-gay laws DOMA and Proposition 8 is about more than marriage equality. It's about Americans seeing gays as equal human beings. Period.SEE ALSO:&There's Absolutely No Logical Argument Against Gay Marriage Please follow Law & Order on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »
A flood of Congressional Democrats has come out in support of gay marriage ahead of Supreme Court arguments on two major cases Tuesday and Wednesday.& The latest was perhaps the most significant, as Alaska Sen. Mark Begich said in a statement Monday night that he now supported same-sex marriage. "Gay and lesbian couples should not be denied the ability to pledge their love and commitment through the civil institution of marriage," Begich said, according to BuzzFeed. "I believe that two committed adults of the same sex should be able to receive a government-issued marriage license, while religious institutions retain their right to determine which marriages they will perform." As a red-state Democrat up for re-election in 2014, Begich's turn marks the most meaningful political reversal in a Congressional group that also includes Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner.& Warner made his announcement on his official Facebook page Monday. "I support marriage equality because it is the fair and right thing to do. Like many Virginians and Americans, my views on gay marriage have evolved, and this is the inevitable extension of my efforts to promote equality and opportunity for everyone," Warner said. McCaskill, meanwhile, took an unconventional approach by announcing her shift on her Tumblr. It was a significant "evolution" from her position during a high-profile campaign in Missouri, when she said that the issue should be left up to individual states. "My views on this subject have changed over time, but as many of my gay and lesbian friends, colleagues and staff embrace long term committed relationships, I find myself unable to look them in the eye without honestly confronting this uncomfortable inequality," McCaskill said in the statement.& "Supporting marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples is simply the right thing to do for our country, a country founded on the principals of liberty and equality.&Good people disagree with me. On the other hand, my children have a hard time understanding why this is even controversial. I think history will agree with my children." Other prominent present and former politicians have in recent weeks announced their support for same-sex marriage, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And just more than a week ago, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman became the first sitting Republican Senator to endorse gay marriage. Please follow Politics on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »
