BOSTON — In the decade since the highest court in Massachusetts issued its landmark ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, 14 other states and the District of Columbia have legalized it, with Illinois poised to become the 16th in a few days.
Such gains were considered almost impossible before Massachusetts opened the door Nov. 18, 2003, with a Supreme Judicial Court ruling that declared a ban on same-sex marriages unconstitutional.
Opponents made doomsday predictions about how same-sex marriage would damage traditional marriage and lead to problems with children raised in same-sex households.
But as years have passed, public opinion has shifted. Supporters have won in the courts, in state legislatures and on state ballots amid intense lobbying, activism and advertising campaigns filled with same-sex couples’ personal stories.
“With more same-sex marriages, you saw more people changing their minds,” said Mary Bonauto, civil rights project director at Boston-based Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders and the lead attorney on the lawsuit that resulted in the same-sex marriage ruling in Massachusetts.
“Seeing gay people with their extended families, seeing the commitment, that’s what has turned this around,” she said.
Opponents have shifted tactics as more and more states have legalized same-sex marriage. Initially, opposition focused on the predicted erosion of traditional marriage but in recent years has pushed concerns about school curriculums and religious objections.
In New Mexico, the state Supreme Court ruled in August that an Albuquerque business owned by same-sex marriage opponents violated a state anti-discrimination law when it refused to photograph a same-sex couple’s commitment ceremony. A law firm representing the business has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its appeal.
Opponents say they plan to do a better job of telling similar stories of people who believe their religious freedoms have been infringed upon by the legalization of same-sex marriage.
“I think we still have to do litigation, we still have to do legislation, but we also have to do education as well,” said Mathew Staver, founder of the Christian legal group Liberty Counsel.
Since same-sex marriages began in Massachusetts in 2004, about 100,000 same-sex couples have gotten married across the U.S., said Lee Badgett, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. At least 16,000 of the marriages have taken place in Massachusetts.
Evan Wolfson, founder and president of Freedom to Marry, said 38 percent of Americans will live in states where same-sex marriage is legal once Illinois’s governor signs the bill on Wednesday. The group has a goal of bringing that above 50 percent by the end of 2016.
Wolfson said Oregon is expected to be a key battleground in 2014 as supporters hope to repeal a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage passed in 2004.
But Staver said he thinks the momentum of the same-sex marriage movement will slow. “I think there will come a tipping point where the pendulum will swing the other way as people begin to see the impact of same-sex marriage,” he said.
