ISWYDT. Very perspicacious of you.
I remember a couple of years ago I posted on this very message board that it was not a good idea for Democrats to get behind gay marriage, because though it was a fine goal, the times were just not right to support it (most polls were showing the majority opposed gay marriage and anti-gay marriage initiatives were passing in state legislatures all over the country) and that wealth inequality was a MUCH more important problem that resonated more powerfully with most voters.
I was wrong on two counts there. Clearly, the times WERE right for supporting gay marriage. I still think wealth inequality is a much more important problem in the US, but I’m all for making hay while the sun shines.
The other count was, I was under the impression that the Democrat leadership had not been bought out lock, stock and barrel by the wealthy oligarchs … that is, no matter how much Americans protest wealth inequality, Democratic leaders won’t respond, because the voters no longer matter to them.
Well, live and learn
If you will note the several comments posted on the topic, the focus is not on Republicans as Republicans. The point noted was the specific way in which the Republican party made it a huge political issue, spending millions of dollars and thousands of hours of air time to oppose it in 2004.
Republicans are the more socially conservative party and it is natural that their support for social changes would lag compared to support from Democrats, but in a situation where the whole nation is changing, the 2004 election saw one party expend enormous energy to stop that change resulting in minor success that ultimately had no effect.
The same happened in Canada, but earlier.
From my perspective, there comes a tipping-point. On one side of the line, homosexuality is seen by the majority of the public as a perversion, perhaps to be pitied and tolerated, perhaps to be suppressed either legally or by violence.
On the other side of the tipping point, homosexuality is seen as a normal, alternative expression of sexuality, and those who disagree are seen as throwbacks at best and more likely as bigots.
This tipping point came fast in my city, and within my memory. In Toronto, the cops used to be notorious for beating up gay guys they caught when I was a teen (the “Cherry Beach Express” for those who remember it - meant the cops taking people, often gay people, out to a deserted part of the city, Cherry Beach, and beating them up). Now, the city advertises itself as a “gay friendly” tourist destination, and the mayor walks in the Pride Parade.
What changed? As others have said, I think it is familiarity. There was a kind of feedback mechanism by which the majority got tired of (and disgusted by) anti-gay thuggery whether official or not and put pressure on to cut that shit out, and gays increasingly risked (and were willing to risk) being “out”. Each reinforced the other - the more gays were “out”, the more the majority saw that it was no big deal, the more pressure was applied to cease the stuff that kept gays from being “out”.
Once enough of the majority was convinced that the “perversion” narrative was wrong, social change became inevitable.
Time magazine agrees with most of what has been said.
Basically, thirty years ago, acceptance of gays was low. In the past few years, it has finally gone above fifty percent so, with a huge acceptance of people less than thirty. Basically, those that have lived with it all their lives don’t see it as a question.
I will say for myself that this was a very recent thing. In Iowa, back in 2009, the Iowa Supreme Court upheld that SSM wasn’t against Iowa’s constitution. And there was outrage. The republicans used that, and some other issues that happened with the then democratic governor, to win the governorship and nearly get the Iowa house and senate. Part of what won the current governor (Terry Branstad) the election was he promised to amend Iowa’s Constitution to make SSM illegal. (There was also a huge pouring in of money into Iowa by special interest groups to get SSM made illegal.)
Fortunately, the process to amend our state constitution is not easy. It takes two sessions of Iowa’s congress in a row to agree to make the change. With how it works, and I’m fuzzy on the details here, it couldn’t have been introduced until 2012 and if it passed then, could be ratified in 2014.
However, that didn’t happen. Instead, along with getting Branstad elected, the public ousted the Iowa Supreme Court judges who were up for it in 2010 and two years later, i think they got rid of one more judge around for the SSM decision. And that seemed to be all the public wanted to do because no one has brought it up and SSM is legal in Iowa.
I have that Time magazine for this article and can’t find on the online one where they list the percentages from the polls. Basically more than 90% acceptance among people less than thirty and less than 20% among people older than sixty. What was also interesting was that it was AIDS that pushed gays wanting the rights of marriage. I never realized that before, so enjoyed the article.
vislor
I would posit that it possible backfired for them. By making it an issue they brought it to the forefront for more people, forcing those people to actually put some thought into the issue. Whereas in the past it was a non-issue with no thought put into it at all for most people.
Like this:
Step 1 - Not thinking about gay marriage at all.
Step 2 - Headlines say vote against gay marriage.
Step 3 - Thinking about gay marriage.
Step 4 - My child/sibling/cousin/aunt/uncle/friend/teacher/preacher is gay? Really?
Step 5 - Well, then I’m ok with gay marriage!
No, I think prior to 2004, most people were simply indifferent on the issue of gay marriage. Let’s face facts, if you’re straight the issue of gay marriage has no direct impact on your life. What difference does it make to me if gay couples can get married?
But the Republicans whipped up a hysteria and convinced a lot of people that gay marriage was somehow a threat to straight people. In the short run, that kind of hard sell campaign can work - for a brief period in 1938, you could have gotten elected on a platform of keeping America safe from Martian attacks.
But in the longer run, people calm down and go back to realizing it was no big deal. And when that happens the leaders who were pushing the hysteria look out of touch. Suddenly everyone is saying how crazy Joe McCarthy is and nobody is talking about how they were all following him a year ago.
You contradict yourself. “people calm down and go back to realizing it was no big deal” [emphasis added] means that Yes, you do think people were generally OK with SSM prior to 2004. Few, if any, people “went back” to thinking it was no big deal. The GOP didn’t need to whip up hysteria-- the MA SC did it for them.
I believe the correct term these days is “evolved”.
I disagree with you, there. Certainly, gay marriage was an issue prior to 2004 in a small, select handful of states, where we had already won most of the other battles for gay rights, and marriage was the last hold-out. But gay marriage was never an issue in, say, Alabama, until the Republicans started using it as a scare tactic to get voters to the polls. Prior to 2005, gay rights in Alabama were more focused on work place and housing discrimination, parental rights, and things like that. Gay marriage was a regional issue, until the GOP made it a national issue.
[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
No, I think prior to 2004, most people were simply indifferent on the issue of gay marriage.
[/QUOTE]
I would disagree.
California Prop 22 was enacted in 2000which stated " “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California”.
Although, that article wasn’t completely accurate. Minnesota expressly forbid it through a supreme court decision in the 70s. The hysteria wasn’t whipped up by the Massachusetts Supreme Court, but by Hawaii. That was the impetus for DOMA (IIRC) and the avalanche of legislation after it.
Well, I could fit in the “was probably casually opposed to SSM prior to 2004” camp. I could have been talked in to Civil Unions, but hadn’t really given it much thought and bought in to the simple, easy to comprehend “marriage = one man and one woman” line. I had gay friends, but none that wanted to get married.
Then it became one of they hot button issues during the 2004 and 2008 elections, and suddenly arguments on both sides were everywhere. I began to realize the inconsistencies in the “traditional” definition argument and how once you remove any rational state interest Civil Unions can only be justified via animus. So, yeah, “evolved”.
Another factor that I’m not sure has been mentioned is that the nation, and the Democratic party in particular, has had a reasonably popular (at least personally) leader that has followed a very similar path from opposed to supportive.
But that’s another thing entirely. They didn’t have to convince the good people of AL to be against SSM-- they already were. They just wanted to get them to the polls.
Remember, we are talking about people’s attitudes, not what was or was not on a ballot any given year or how vociferous people were about their opinions.
I’m on the side of, it snowballed as more and more places started allowing it and shit utterly failed to happen. In addition to which, as more people started to realize they knew gay people, it became personal; Alan Keyes notwithstanding, it’s easier to say “well, of course Those People shouldn’t have full access to equal participation in society” than to say it about your own kid, or even your neighbor. One person deprived full equality is a problem, a million is a statistic.
I don’t believe that’s what he’s saying. He’s saying that most people just didn’t really think about the issue before that time. If no one is thinking about it, then the status quo remains the status quo.
It’s something similar to the Barbara Streisand effect, where complaining about something only gives it more air time. In this case, by promoting it to a primary issue (and, yes, that was because of the Boston legalization of SSM), it greatly mobilized the proponents, the ones actually lobbying for change.
It also made people just start thinking about the issue themselves. They may have been against gay marriage before, but now that it’s a political issue, they’ve decided to reevaluate what their previous beliefs.
It’s not that people were for same sex marriage, they just had never really given it any thought.
Indeed. There was a reflexive rejection of a previously unconsidered concept, helped along by election-year propaganda. Like all reflexes, though, it’s not a permanent state.
I think it has to do with the fact our society values individuality as opposed to group loyality much more than it did in the recent past. It’s largely a result of capitalist ideology spreading.
I guess something good came out of capitalism! 
I think it’s largely a wedge issue, too. By saying they’re pro gay marriage, they can win the liberal vote even if they don’t give a f*ck about the environment or economic justice.
Not all Democrats.
41 years ago, at the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party State Convention in 1972, the delegates voted to add a plank to their platform supporting same-sex marriage.
That was the earliest support for SSM by any major party in the US. Probably done in reaction to this court decision:
Hopefully, before that 41st anniversary actually arrives, the DFL majority in Minnesota state government will make SSM legal in Minnesota.
As others have pointed out there hasn’t been a sudden shift. But I’m a bit surprised nobody has provided the following answer: The attitudes of Americans towards homosexuals has changed in large part due to the efforts of LGBT groups who have lobbied both lawmakers and public opinion.
It’s worth noting that this is a world-wide trend not just a US trend.
Remember, prior to 2001, there wasn’t a single country on Earth where gay marriage was legal.