What is the significance of gay marriage

In fact, studies conducted in states that have adopted same-sex marriage have already established significant improvements in health and access to care:. The health benefits from legal same-sex marriage extend beyond the adults themselves — particularly to the , children in the United States being raised by same-sex parents. Employers who offer health insurance to dependent children often require minors to be related to the employee by birth, legal marriage or legal adoption.

Thus, children are left with diminished protections in states that do not allow legal marriages or adoptions for lesbian and gay couples.

A study recently reported in Pediatrics found that children with same-sex parents were less likely to have private health insurance than children with heterosexual parents. The study also found that disparities in private insurance coverage diminished for children of same-sex parents living in states with marriage equality or laws supporting gay and lesbian adoptions.

How All States Can Improve Family Protections Given political gridlock in Congress, states are more likely than the federal government to advance protections for members of gay, lesbian, and bisexual families. Public opinion is shifting rapidly in support of same-sex marriage, so more states will take this step. But not all states will legalize same-sex marriage in the immediate future, and in many of these lagging states, steps forward will take the form of measures that garner stronger public support than legal marriage.

Such steps beneficial to the lesbian, gay, and bisexual population include anti-discrimination laws in housing and employment; rights of legal adoption by gay and lesbian couples; anti-bullying laws to better protect gay youth from harassment; and inclusion of crimes against gays, lesbians, and bisexual people in anti-crime legislation.

Each of these steps can reduce discrimination and lead to improvements in mental and physical health. The path towards same-sex marriage may follow two steps in more conservative states or states controlled by Republican lawmakers and administrations. Initially, states may adopt civil unions or comprehensive domestic partnerships that include full spousal rights and protections for members of gay and lesbian partnerships — to be followed later by full marriage equality by legislation or court rulings.

This staged approach has happened in several states, most recently in New Jersey and Colorado. In May , the state Supreme Court struck down the state law banning same-sex marriage, but just a few months later voters approved Proposition 8, which again restricted marriage to heterosexual couples.

The highly contentious ballot measure was declared unconstitutional two years later, but multiple appeals kept the matter unsettled until , when the U. Supreme Court dismissed the case. Hollingsworth v. Perry legalized same-sex marriage in California. The early s continued the state-level battles over gay marriage that defined the preceding decade, with at least one notable event. In , Massachusetts, the first state to legalize gay marriage, found Section 3 of DOMA—the part of the law that defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman—to be unconstitutional.

Foundations of the act had finally begun to crumble, but the real hammer fell with United States v. Windsor sued the government in late A few months later, U. In , the 2nd U. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments for the case. Though the U. In each case, trial courts sided with the plaintiffs, but the U.

Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit disagreed, bringing the case to the U. Supreme Court. As with United States v. By this time, it was still outlawed in only 13 states, and more than 20 other countries had already legalized gay marriage, starting with the Netherlands in December, Northern Island is the most recent country to legalize gay marriage in October, A Pew Research Center poll in found that 57 percent of Americans opposed same-sex marriage and only 35 percent supported it.

Fifteen years later, in , a Pew poll found almost the complete opposite: Americans supported same-sex marriage by a margin of 55 percent to 37 percent. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. The gay rights movement in the United States has seen huge progress in the last century, and especially the last two decades. Laws prohibiting homosexual activity have been struck down; lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals can now serve openly in the military.

In , on the first anniversary of her marriage, author Sarah Orne Jewett penned a romantic poem to her partner. As we approach the fourth anniversary of the ruling, here are five key facts about same-sex marriage:. Around four-in-ten U.

But views are largely unchanged over the last few years. While support for same-sex marriage has grown steadily across generational cohorts in the last 15 years, there are still sizable age gaps. But there were some differences, too. The first nation to legalize gay marriage was the Netherlands, which did so in Since then, several other European countries — including England and Wales, France, Ireland, all of Scandinavia, Spain and, most recently, Austria, Germany and Malta — have legalized gay marriage.

And in May , Taiwan became the first country in Asia to allow gays and lesbians to legally wed. Note: This is an update to a post originally published April 27, A global snapshot of same-sex marriage. In times of uncertainty, good decisions demand good data. Please support our research with a financial contribution.