How has same-sex marriage changed America?

This week marks a notable anniversary: 20 years since America's first legal same-sex marriages were performed in Massachusetts. The ceremonies, featuring seven couples, came after the state's top court ruled that the Massachusetts Constitution "forbids the creation of second-class citizens." "That ruling, and the marriages it allowed, represented progress few queer people expected to witness in our lifetimes," Renée Graham said in The Boston Globe.

"Two decades later, what was once the white-hot center of political debate has receded to the background," said The Wall Street Journal. The Massachusetts ruling didn't mark the end of that debate, but it was the beginning of the end. The U.S. Supreme Court settled the issue with its landmark 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriages nationwide. What was once a bitterly divisive issue is now relatively popular: "Polls show nearly three-quarters of Americans, including 49% of Republicans and a majority of regular churchgoers, support it." Does that mean the debate is completely over?

What did the commentators say?

"The past few years have taught us that hard-earned rights should not be taken for granted," Robert B. Hanson, the judge who ruled in favor of gay marriage in Iowa in 2007, said in The Des Moines Register. Same-sex families have blossomed even in red states — Iowa is home to 4,000 such couples, and more than a quarter of those are raising children. But the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 signaled that other rights could be on the chopping block. "There are real threats to this progress, and it's critical that we not lose sight of them."

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This means same-sex marriage — far from firmly entrenched in the law — might be on the ballot in 2024. Right now a "majority of justices aren't ready to rule that same-sex marriage is no longer protected," Philip Elliott said at Time magazine. That could change depending on the results of the presidential election. The next president could replace enough Supreme Court justices to "shift that dynamic fairly quickly." Strategists in both parties are trying to avoid discussing LGBTQ+ rights, preferring to focus instead on abortion. That should change. The issue deserves "better attention by the candidates and voters."

What next?

Onetime opponents of same-sex marriage have largely moved on to campaigns against transgender rights, The New York Times said in 2023. After the Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell, "social conservatives were set adrift." The new focus on transgender Americans, particularly young people, has "reinvigorated a network of conservative groups, increased fund-raising and set the agenda in school boards and state legislatures."

Perhaps that's because conservative fears about the legalization of same-sex marriage "simply have not come to pass," UCLA's Benjamin R. Karney told Newsweek. There were concerns that allowing gay marriage would result in "fewer couples marrying, more couples divorcing and an overall retreat from family formation," he said. Instead, marriage rates went up among both different-sex and same-sex couples, while adoption rates increased. "The only changes we detect," said Melanie A. Zaber, an economist who studied the issue with Karney, "are suggestive of a renewed salience of marriage among the broader public."