The entirely baseless scaremongering about same-sex marriage

In the run-up to Obergefell, state same-sex marriage bans kept getting struck down by formerly skeptical circuit courts because states failed to identify any legitimate state interest they protected — they were ultimately just bigotry for its own stake. As Molly Ball observers, the reactionary movement in America was committed to a hysterical fearmongering about same-sex-marriage, but were also hysterically opposed to any state changing their laws because it would obviously reveal their arguments as fraudulent. After 20 years, the evidence is unambiguous:

Twenty years ago this week, David Wilson and Rob Compton entered into a marriage that some believed would bring on the apocalypse. These days, they are happily retired and spend their time volunteering and visiting with their grandchildren.

When America’s first state-sanctioned same-sex marriages took place in Massachusetts on May 17, 2004, Wilson and Compton’s among them, a furious political controversy swirled. “The House and Senate, the governor, the president, the pope, the Black church I grew up in—everyone was against us, and it was very unnerving,” Wilson, 80, recalled in a recent interview.

Opponents warned that the consequences would be dire. Then-Gov. Mitt Romney compared the court ruling that enabled it to the 1857 Dred Scott case that denied citizenship to Black people. Both presidential candidates, Democrat John Kerry and Republican President George W. Bush, came out against it. Catholic bishops called it “a national tragedy.” Sure to follow, they warned, was the ruination of the institution of marriage, the American family and potentially society itself.

Two decades later, what was once the white-hot center of political debate has receded to the background. Polls show nearly three-quarters of Americans, including 49% of Republicans and a majority of regular churchgoers, support it. The Supreme Court made same-sex marriage a nationwide right in 2015, and Congress gave federal recognition to the practice on a broad bipartisan vote in 2022. One of the votes in favor: Sen. Mitt Romney, who said the Respect for Marriage Act “signals that Congress—and I—esteem and love all of our fellow Americans equally.”

The widespread public approval suggests most people don’t believe the horrors once forecast have resulted from same-sex marriage’s legalization, and now there is evidence to prove it. A comprehensive new research report by the Rand organization finds that the consequences of two decades of legal same-sex marriage have been broadly positive for gay and straight Americans alike.

The researchers, who surveyed the existing literature and conducted their own analysis, could find no negative effects on straight couples’ rates of marriage, divorce or cohabitation as states legalized same-sex marriage. In fact, the effect on different-sex marriages was slightly positive. Meanwhile, same-sex couples saw a range of improved outcomes, such as greater health and financial security. “Overall, the fears of opponents of same-sex marriage simply have not come to pass,” said the study’s co-author, Benjamin R. Karney, a Rand researcher and UCLA psychology professor.

The only downside to SSM is that it makes people like Sam Alito look bad for maintaining their bigotry after it being firmly established that it has no rational basis. Which would be funny except that it means that Obergefell isn’t safe irrespective of the facts on the ground.