Sometimes social change arrives slowly.
Slavery was abolished and equal protection enshrined in the Constitution in the 1860s. Yet nearly a century would pass before segregation was outlawed in public facilities, and racial equality would begin to emerge as a fact.
Sometimes social change travels fast. Thirty years ago, 57% of American adults did not approve of sexual relations, let alone marriage, between gays and lesbians. Gallup did not begin to ask respondents about same sex marriage until twenty years ago. Before then, the issue was not considered controversial enough to warrant polling. In 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act went before Congress. Section 3 of the Act declared: “The word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ‘spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.” It passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. Two thirds of the Democratic senators and representatives voted in favor, along with nearly all Republican members. The Act became law when President Clinton signed it. At the time, Bill Clinton opposed same-sex marriage. So did his wife. So did every notable figure in both major parties.
In 2008, when Barack Obama ran for President, he too opposed same-sex marriage, stating: “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage.” He continued to oppose same-sex marriage until 2012. Hillary Clinton continued to oppose it until 2013.
That same year, 2013, the Supreme Court, in United States v. Windsor, declared Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, effectively ending federal bars to same-sex marriage. Two years later, in 2015, the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that state laws banning same sex marriage were also unconstitutional. Continue reading
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