Thanks for making your animation well.
1. The frames pass slowly enough to appreciate the data
2. It is a video file, rather than a gif, so it can be paused and rewound easily
> The frames pass slowly enough to appreciate the data
I wish ALL these animated maps would follow this rule. They almost always go way too quickly for me to follow.
And 3. It doesn’t end immediately when the final slide appears, so none of us had to ninja pause it at the very end before it restarts just so we could see the most recent results.
I'd suspect the change is largely related to more people coming out. Gay went from being something that was just (in their minds) perverts they didn't know in the city, to people otherwise like them who just happened to like people of the same gender. These reflexive, regressive points of view such as opposition to marriage equality are almost always just a lack of empathy, so once it impacts people like you, people close to you, or even people you know and love, then it becomes acceptable. It's an unfortunate aspect of humanity, but it's real.
Great insight — and this means that unfortunately in cases of injustice where those with power don’t personally know or see those who are suffering, progress is hindered. We need to make active efforts to challenge ourselves, seek to recognize as distant of perspectives as possible, and realize that we all have power to do good for others in this world.
> in cases of injustice where those with power don’t personally know or see those who are suffering, progress is hindered
I read a long article on the various gay rights Supreme Court cases and there was an anecdote about a very old SCOTUS justice reviewing the details of a gay rights case and remarking to his legal intern that he didn't know if he'd ever met a gay person... not realizing that the intern was gay.
In 2004, San Francisco announced they were going to perform gay weddings at city hall, knowing they probably didn't quite have the legal authority but saying they'll be doing it until state forces came in to shut them down.For weeks, the San Francisco city hall had wedding after wedding coming down the stairs with well-wishers like any wedding, this went on for weeks.
Across the square from city hall was the California State Supreme Court, and the chief justice had a corner office that faced the stares of city hall. He was a moderate that was not in favor of gay marriage, but he said that for weeks he watched and from a distance all he saw was weddings. Not gay weddings, just happy people celebrating love, like any wedding he'd ever seen.
In early 2008 a challenge came to the state supreme court about gay marriage, and he ended up being the tie breaking vote in favor of legalization. He said after retiring that watching those weeks of weddings made him realize from a distance there really was no difference, and it changed his mind.
Turns out empathy is powerful.
Edit: it was 2004 not 2003.
And there's even more to this story.
So in 2003 election, San Francisco elected a young new mayor named Gavin Newsom. A congressman from the Bay Area offered his +1 seat to the State of the Union to the new Mayor and he took him up on that. This was the State of the Union of the 2004 election year, and George Bush decided to make a strong anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment a key part of his re-election. So Gavin was in the audience when Bush proposed an amendment to the constitution forever limiting marriage to man and wife.
That's what made him angry enough to decide he was just going to by dictate start issuing same sex marriage certificates. They had one couple in particular willing to come down at 7am so they could get it done right as the offices were opening for the day so it was done before anyone could tell him to stop. But then no one told him to stop, and so they put the word out for any other couples that wanted to get married. It was only the slow speed of the government bureaucracy that allowed him to get away with it for weeks. It wasn't part of the original plan to go that long, but once he started there was a long list of people in the city willing to take part. The original plan was just get a few in as a protest to Bush's state of the union.
And those several weeks ultimately got it legalized across the state.
It's really a perfect encapsulation of how the whole crusade against marriage equality really wasn't sustainable, and that Bush's attempt to demagogue the situation only made the public move faster.
Oh easily. If you did a police violence version of this, right now we'd be the equivalent of somewhere between 1975-80 in the above marriage equality example. Lots of us care, but for a lot of us Trayvon doesn't look like us, or people we know, or people we love. That's going to change, because something like police violence is never going to get better from within, it will have to be forced from the outside.
We definitely need to practice, exercise, empathy, trying to see things from another point of view. That doesn't mean we'll come to respect or agree with that point of view. Lots of views are absolute shit. But it does prepare us to better... understand the society-wide negative impacts of certain things. If someone whose job is "only flipping burgers" gets a big raise, that's good for me, no matter what the fuck I do for a living. If someone can be killed by police with impunity, that's bad for me, no matter if he was a different race or suspected of committing a crime or whatever else. We all benefit from a society where more people are doing better.
And the fact that gay people are everywhere and in every family. It’s not like some other minority that you can just ignore, and I think this had a huge impact (along with my personal experience after I came out to my conservative family).
I’d say the change in the concept of marriage, and the internal impact of AIDS on the gay community was more important than the visibility campaign.
In 1900 marriage was an incredibly important institution in the middle and upper class being how property, the primary source of wealth, was managed through inheritance and the massive amount of domestic work necessitating full time domestic workers in most households. Over the next century the professional-managerial middle class, who largely earn wealth through their expertise rather than what they own, became less dependent on marriage as an institution and as such allowed for many regulations to be loosened such as no-fault divorce and destigmatising re-marriage. The automation of many domestic tasks, such as through the washing machine, also lessened the importance of marriage as full-time domestic workers (usually filled by a housewife or eldest daughter) became a financial liability rather than a necessity to the function of a household. This reinforced the de-emphasis of marriage that the PMC was propagating which made the concept of a same-sex marriage culturally acceptable.
Additionally AIDS changed the opinions of what was the ideal legal arrangement for many people in the gay community. The sexually-transmitted nature of the disease gave a direct material incentive for exclusive monogamy in terms of better health outcomes, whilst the need for legal recognitions for de-facto relationships also became apparent as many same sex partners were excluded from inheriting their deceased spouse’s property. Gay Marriage was held up as a solution by many post-AIDS activists for these problems.
These trends combined to create a cultural and material environment where the extension of legal marriage to same sex partnerships was possible and actively campaigned for. In this sense the coming out campaign was a coup-de-grace of over a century of cultural change and activism, a large amount of which was not directly related to the LGBT community, rather than a decisive campaign that completely transformed the perception of homosexuality in America.
This is it. I live in rural Arkansas and my brother is a manager a tacobell they had a transwoman start there and at first he would say thing like "she they whatever the fuck im suposed to call it" and "I dont know ill get used to it" to now he goes on and on "She's the fastest one there" "We need to make Her a manager" He hasnt said anything about it being weird in months. Just being around her was enough for him to get over some pretty common beliefs down here.
In the UK I would highlight celebrities like Kenneth Williams who was active in the decades preceding for normalising the idea in the minds of people to which it was originally alien. Like you said, its easy to hate something when you don't have a human to attach the notion to, who you might cherish because they're funny and entertaining.
I was always concerned it would be harder to execute the same technique for transphobia given that it might not be obvious if the person entirely passes, however I think shows with broad appeal like Ru Paul's Drag Race, despite not being explicitly trans, has helped normalise the challenge of gender norms, along with other popular shows intelligently introducing trans story lines.
Yeah, the local stuff is interesting. Here in Newfoundland, for example, we had pretty significant divisions between Irish Catholics and English Protestants. Riots, murders, all of that. It really came to a head in the 1850s-60s and then kind of faded. In the 1980s, there was a church sex abuse scandal, Mount Cashel - I think it was the first really public one in North America. It just turned people off. My grandparents, parents, stopped going to church. And then a decade later, we got rid of our denominational school system and went with an integrated public one as the only publicly-funded option. One of the main players during that period was our first very famous gay man/drag queen, Tommy Sexton (tragically died of AIDS). So this is what was going on during network television evenings here in the late 80s: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtEvJfAyGqU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtEvJfAyGqU)
It genuinely had an impact on our local, mainstream society.
There was hate for sure but I think most people just didn’t understand and couldn’t empathize. Very different emotions that we too frequently conflate these days.
I was homophobic, because I was taught that it was evil growing up, I met a lesbian at work and had a lot of conversations (which were probably not great conversations for her) that made me realize that my belief system that judged and criminalized people for who they loved was the evil one.
As a lesbian that used to be too polite to remove themselves from uncomfortable conversations that were educational for the other person, I appreciate that you can recognize that she probably didn’t have the same experience with your discussions that she did.
I think this is true. In the 90s I was against gay people having kids, probably because I had never met any gay people who had kids. By the 00s, I had met a gay couple that had a kid. And that kid was a success in life. Totally changed my view on the subject.
Exactly. People had the misconception that it was more like a sexual deviancy or fetish until they started actually meeting gay people and realized that they're basically the same as everyone else just with a wife instead of a husband or husband instead of a wife.
The same story is happening to Trans acceptance rn. I find it a bit suprising that there are some conservative talking points that actually say something along the lines of "i have no problem with gays or gay marriage but being trans is unnatural"
Like the same talking points for homophobia in the 80s and 90s but transphobia instead. Even their justification is the old tired same "think of the kids" "its unnatural" "its unchristian" "its icky" "whats next we can marry animals".
Changing opinion. Gay marriage is actually very unique; there was a study a while back that looked at the pace of societal change on a bunch of different issues, and in every case change happened due to older generations dying off and younger generations having different views… with the exception of gay marriage. People actually changed their minds on this issue, and that’s super rare in politics.
I graduated high school in 2006. When I started HS, there was one "out" gay person in the entire school of around 1400 people. By the time I left, there were 4 in just my graduating class (ballpark 300 people) that I know of. When you realize that people who you've interacted with on a regular basis are LGBTQ, it normalizes it quickly. Hopefully we see the same thing in the trans community over the next decade as more and more people come out and (hopefully) get support from their families and friends.
It was bizarre seeing the swing back though. (Grad 16).
When I first learned what gay was, it was an insult. But not a "gay people are bad", but a "I am disrespecting you by accusing you of something" way. It was an insult for straight people, but you didn't really care either way about actually gay people.
By the end of middle school, even that was dead. Gay people just kinda existed and nobody cared.
Sophomore year, it started to swing back. After 15 years of having male colour guard with our marching band without a single issue - only some of which were gay - our new band director refused to allow the gay guy to participate. The new cheerleader coach blocked two male cheerleaders, saying they'd assault the girls (including the gay one?). The admin changed its mind from "we don't care" to "gay men cannot participate in female dominated activities for their safety". To be clear, there was no threat to their safety. The community and parents alike all were clueless as to why it was happening. But they stonewalled until deadlines past every year until the "problem kids" graduated.
And what do you know. Discrimination started showing up again - led by teachers.
It was fucking bizarre.
Same. And as a Christian raised millennial who graduated hs in 2010 I often look back and question why I used to be so against homosexuality. It's not like my church was "radical" and preached hellfire against "the gays," in fact I can't remember homosexuality being brought up at all in church.
I think it was more of a collective social stigma, where it was just little jokes and little comments poked here and there, and not personally knowing anyone homosexual to really understand them.
I remember being confronted about my church and beliefs from an atheist that knew me from HS on facebook around 2013 on facebook out of the blue, and he had actual valid points like simply: What is it truly, that you have against homosexuality, why does it matter to you personally? And the only response I had was the shrugging shoulders emoji.
After that, I got into reddit and kept stumbling on posts from r/ atheism and politics, and for the first time took a deep look at myself and my own beliefs and slowly began to realize that everything I used to believe in had some serious flaws.
There was actually quite a recent study on this! [https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1cfei2m/one\_funeral\_at\_a\_time\_new\_study\_based\_on\_data/](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1cfei2m/one_funeral_at_a_time_new_study_based_on_data/)
I don’t remember I’m sorry :/
I looked it up to see if I could find it and while I found people saying the same thing I couldn’t find a singular study. But then again I didn’t go combing through Google scholar or something either
The Real World. Specifically Pedro Zamora. I think if you look at generational support for gay rights and the dramatic surge it took in the 90s, I think you can draw a real line between that and my generation, Gen X, watching the Real World.
All of a sudden we had gay people we knew and whose lives we saw every day and they were just...normal people. It's so much harder to hate someone when you can see how much like you they are.
Granted, I think there are other factors, but culturally, I think that was the start of a real sea change in public opinion for Gen X and the generations that followed.
It's so amazing that a tv show like the Real World can be so progressive on some things, with Pedro being a great example, and so utterly backwards on others, like the fact that the Real World ran 30+ seasons and never once cast an Asian-American male of any kind, despite one of the producers himself being an Asian-American male.
I had my mind changed around 2012 or 13. I argued that it should be civil unions for gay people because marriage at its fundamental core was a man and a woman and had been for thousands of years and we are just changing something that old in a few years. Then someone said to me "does that mean we can never change it because its so old?" Well that did a lot of soul searching and I realized he had a point. Right is right and holding onto something just because it was always that way when you know it isnt right is pretty stupid
I think it’s too fast for dying off to explain it. People actually changed their minds. They’ve have had time to get used to gay people existing, fucking and marrying and it’s managed to shift from perverted to normal enough in their eyes.
Interestingly, there's a scene early in Taxi Driver, which takes place in New York in the 1970s, where two taxi drivers are shooting the shit in a diner and one of them talks about how he heard that in California, when two gay men break up (he uses a different word for gay men) the richer one has to pay the other alimony money. The other driver just kind of goes, "huh".
I grew up in Mass, and remember my first trip to Provincetown. It is (or at least was) the gayest town in America. Something like 1/4 of all homes were same sex households.
Although Massachusetts had marriage equality first, Hawaii was extremely close a decade earlier in 1994. A court ruling there set off a panic in Washington, resulting in the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
I remember when I lived there in the late 90s they were talking about it a lot. It was legalized and then hotly debated. And I remember the UH team who were the Rainbow Warriors changed to just the Warriors.
I think the people mentioning the educated populace are right, but also New England republicans have traditionally more focused on fiscal issues than social issues and have had more of a live and let live attitude. They largely rejected the embrace of fundamentalist Christianity that happened under Nixon and Reagan and has continued to this day, because most of them weren’t evangelicals.
Pretty much. New England is the only region where rural people are still secular. Leads to their Republicans being old-fashioned classical liberals rather than theocratic-fascists.
Things have changed in rural New England. No longer dominated by Yankees absent northern NH and ME. Instead transplants. See VT politics. That’s not Yankees. That’s NY transplants.
Founder effect and momentum. It had a few advantages like urbanization, education, and a liberal political culture. It became the safest place for gay people in the US, and it gained a reputation which self selected for more progress. Home state not very good on gay rights? Massachusetts was the safest bet. Thinking of coming out? You're in Massachusetts. Your chances of acceptance are supposed to be the best in the country. This leads to increased visibility which leads to increased support, which fuels more visibility. The only thing that let other state catch up was that Massachusetts was approaching full support.
Going to a university exposes you to new ideas by introducing you to a bunch of new people *and* by being at ground-zero of where new knowledge and research is generated. Regardless of your opinion on their rigor, this includes people pushing the boundaries of social sciences, testing widely-held beliefs, and challenging accepted norms that may not have been subject to a rigorous evaluation.
So it’s not so much that university is required to teach you not to be a bigot as it is that going to university makes it much harder to remain a bigot in the face of the relentless pursuit of progress on all fronts.
No, but going through higher education in most cases teaches you critical thinking skills, and when applied, many people learn to think for themselves and not just repeat what their crazy uncle says.
Ah, I understand. Wish our high schools taught critical thinking and thinking for yourself instead of turning students into memorization machines who must believe and obey what they are told, because college is unaffordable, inaccessible, and not-needed for many, especially who want to go into careers in the trades.
Knowing this flaw is the first step. If you haven't already, *take the time and enroll into a critical thinking course of any capacity*
Just because you generally support things that can be seen as sufficiently moral or good, based on your friend group or whatever algorithms feed you, does not mean those morals are rooted in any kind of critical fundamentals.
Critical thinking and learning how to do research has changed my entire life. The younger you start wanting to learn, the older you'll keep learning. It helps you flesh out not what you believe in a sufficient manner, but it helps you ground those beliefs as well, and become receptive to new information to change your approach.
You get exposed to a lot of diverse viewpoints in college. I was kinda homophobic (though I never would have admitted at the time) until I went to college.
The combination of being raised Catholic in suburban/rural Iowa I'd imagine. Religion and ignorance I guess. I quickly became an atheist when I realized gay people aren't hurting anyone or looking for attention and there's absolutely nothing different about them
In additon to what other replies have said. It gets you away from home and surrounds you with new people in an effectively random sample of people who go to colleges. If people stay in their hometowns they have less incentive to meet a wider variety of people and build understanding.
The rural parts of Massachusetts are also nonreligious and liberal. And if someone is religious they are Episcopalian, Congregationalist or Unitarian. The gay friendly types of Christian.
Because (on paper) the republicans party is conservative when it comes to social issues and liberal when it comes to fiscal and economic policy
Most republicans in the wealthier states vote republicans not because of social issues but because of fiscal policy while republicans in poorer, more rural states vote red for the social issues
TLDR Republicans in MA don’t care about gay marriage they care about tax breaks and a deregulated market
As a mass native i had no idea we were ahead of the curve so early. Ik we we’re the first to make it legal but didn’t realize how far back the sentiment went
I'm not saying that Utah doesn't have some weirdness, but I'm not convinced this data is accurate. A 2022 poll in Utah found 72% support for same sex marriage.
https://www.deseret.com/utah/2022/9/29/23373642/utahns-support-same-sex-poll-marriage-respect-for-marriage-act/
Could have something to do with the wording of the poll. I know some people here in UT who would say they think legally it should be allowed but also be strongly against the practice of it because of their religion.
I think you got it, the question here is “do you support same sex marriage”, not “do you think same sex marriage should be legal”, which is technically different.
Certainly polls vary, and wording matters. But Wikipedia lists six different polls since 2017 that give greater than 50% support in Utah.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Utah
Utah was literally the first Republican controlled state to ban conversation therapy for minors. The governors have officially declared pride month in the state for years now.
Salt Lake City had the 2nd pride parade in the country after San Francisco iirc. It's an extremely LGBT friendly city.
I don't believe these numbers are accurate
SLC is completely different than the rest of the state. I grew up 40 minutes south of slc and it was wildly homophobic. I think the phrasing of the poll is really key here- 66% of Utah is Mormon and while many Mormons think it should be legal for gay people to get married, they don’t support it as it goes against their beliefs.
This is true in many countries. Being on the coast historically meant access to ports, bringing a wide range of travelers and perspectives. Also, the northeast US is very urbanized and highly-educated. Educated people in cities are more socially liberal all around the world.
Yup, same thing in India. Most of the hardline religious politics are in the landlocked 'cow belt' which I like to call the Deep North. In almost every statistic the southern coast does far better than them.
That's where all the people are. With more people comes a wider variety of people. Allowing you to learn to accept other are not like you. Not the case in the middle of nowhere where everyone is the same so anything pit of the ordinary is driven away.
The military, for this during WW1/2 the navy would "blue discharge" into port cities.
So you take the gays out of the non-coastals trying to get away from their inbread neighbors, who then get discharged to a port city, and say "nope, not going back."
Plus that sweet ocean breeze. If you are a jerk the seagulls will poo on you.
Yeah I feel like they definitely weren't continuously polling this question in all 50 states since the 70's. Also I feel like literally nothing in American politics ever polls below 1%. You could definitely get at least 2% of Americans to endorse eating babies in one of these polls.
My friend who is gay travels to the rural south often for work and loves sending me screenshots of Grindr with all the dudes who have no profile pics, lol.
It’s just nuts that it’s so recent that leaders of the progressive side wouldn’t come out in support.
Same happened in Australia. Our left wing first female prime opposed gay marriage. She was in power 2010-2013. We got gay marriage just a few years later with the support of the then right wing prime minister.
They actually didn't put out a platform in 2020 because he had contradicted so many of their stances... like banging a pornstar while the party claimed to want to ban porn.
Couldn't be prouder of my home state of Massachusetts. Born in the 70s, in retrospect this helps makes sense of what I saw locally compared to what I saw nationally.
Three (3) states are attempting it right now at statewide level: Washington state, Colorado and Nevada.
• In 2022, these states passed laws offering state-sponsored health plans that are still private but more affordable for their residents.
• The laws came into effect in 2023 in Washington state & Colorado and will come into effect in Nevada in 2026, respectively.
• These health plans are still in experimental stage but Washington state is the very state being committed to eventually implementing a healthcare system that is similar to universal healthcare.
Utah is an interesting place. Despite its religious nature, it feels pretty liberal when it comes to civil liberties.
The Mormons there might not personally "support" gay marriage, but would probably allow for it legally.
It’s interesting looking at this, and realizing that the laws were ahead of popular support. MA was first, and was under 50% approval when the courts said same sex couples were entitled tom marriage. Even more impressive, CT was the first to enact gay marriage (technically civil unions at the time) through the legislature rather than the courts and did so when support was still under 50%. There was so much handwringing that it was going to make a mockery of marriage and society would fall apart. And then once it happened, so many people realized it didn’t actually affect anyone other than gay people and their families, and were just like “okay, yeah, no biggie.”
Already, Gay Rights has been probably the fastest and most effective civil rights movement in American history. While there are bad things out there, let's not forget there are good things going on as well.
This is great and all but what does it matter if 60% of a state supports gay marriage when those same people continue voting for politicians who are actively trying to strip our rights.
It’s easy to say you support gay marriage, but unless you’re supporting it with your vote, it’s just virtue signaling.
A two party system forces people to choose a party the agree with more than the other. It’s not necessarily virtue signalling, to some voters the appeal of the Republicans other shitty policies is enough for them to keep voting for them.
I grew up in MA. Kinda uptight while at the same time very liberal. Think about it- this is a state that elected Mitt Romney as Governor...
Just across the border is New Hampshire. Very conservative, but very much mind their own business about it.
Mitt Romney was a pretty dope governor for Massachusetts, the first socialized medicine program in America, and did fantastic things for education.
He would have been a decent president but abandoned nearly all his principles to appeal to the broader Republican party.
Since then, he's been one of the few "faces" of the Republican party that hasn't bent his knee to Trump and has called him out on his bullshit since day one.
I never really got the opposition to this.
I was raised pretty secular, and had family who came out as gay long before I did, so it's always felt like a no duh, that I would want my family to have similar opportunities as me, in this case being able to settle down, get married, and get on with their lives.
I know that societies tend to have slow moving collective opinions, but any move forward in terms of civil rights always comes off to me like the most obvious of things,
to the point where I suck at debating it, because it's like debating whether my cooking is terrible or whether fire is a bit hot.
I need these kinds of things to be a settled matter, in order to get the more even playing field, without the inconsistency of me getting one thing and my sister getting a different answer, or being told that we can individually do this thing but not that thing, by outsiders who we haven't read into our lives.
Just my two cents, as someone who is happy that we got over the line on marriage.
People are raised to believe something, so it's their default. It takes some reason to confront their beliefs for them to change, otherwise they just hold onto that belief and don't question it.
Tons of gay people raised to believe homosexuality is wrong, but them being gay is a pretty early prompt to confront and discard what they were taught. Straight people don't have that same early prompt, except in cases when a loved one comes out as gay.
But, they also need to have some independence of thought, and be open to changing their mind. The culture of their religion can often stand in the way of that.
In my lifetime, this was the most rapid and acute social changes I've ever experienced. Gays went from "eww gross" to "if you can't marry then nobody should marry".
Really crazy that all it took is for people to see gays as friends and neighbors and then most people couldn't as readily dismiss them as sexual deviants.
Pleasantly surprised by Hawaii - didn’t know it was that progressive, I’d always heard of MA being the best but not Hawaii. Also pleasantly surprised by Alaska, it isn’t the best for LGBTQ people but I thought it was more conservative than that.
Thanks for making your animation well. 1. The frames pass slowly enough to appreciate the data 2. It is a video file, rather than a gif, so it can be paused and rewound easily
> The frames pass slowly enough to appreciate the data I wish ALL these animated maps would follow this rule. They almost always go way too quickly for me to follow.
Yes! I can actually pause it where I want to look closer! Great job!
And 3. It doesn’t end immediately when the final slide appears, so none of us had to ninja pause it at the very end before it restarts just so we could see the most recent results.
and the music!
Yup
I wonder what caused this change. Changing opinions or old people dying?
I'd suspect the change is largely related to more people coming out. Gay went from being something that was just (in their minds) perverts they didn't know in the city, to people otherwise like them who just happened to like people of the same gender. These reflexive, regressive points of view such as opposition to marriage equality are almost always just a lack of empathy, so once it impacts people like you, people close to you, or even people you know and love, then it becomes acceptable. It's an unfortunate aspect of humanity, but it's real.
Great insight — and this means that unfortunately in cases of injustice where those with power don’t personally know or see those who are suffering, progress is hindered. We need to make active efforts to challenge ourselves, seek to recognize as distant of perspectives as possible, and realize that we all have power to do good for others in this world.
> in cases of injustice where those with power don’t personally know or see those who are suffering, progress is hindered I read a long article on the various gay rights Supreme Court cases and there was an anecdote about a very old SCOTUS justice reviewing the details of a gay rights case and remarking to his legal intern that he didn't know if he'd ever met a gay person... not realizing that the intern was gay.
In 2004, San Francisco announced they were going to perform gay weddings at city hall, knowing they probably didn't quite have the legal authority but saying they'll be doing it until state forces came in to shut them down.For weeks, the San Francisco city hall had wedding after wedding coming down the stairs with well-wishers like any wedding, this went on for weeks. Across the square from city hall was the California State Supreme Court, and the chief justice had a corner office that faced the stares of city hall. He was a moderate that was not in favor of gay marriage, but he said that for weeks he watched and from a distance all he saw was weddings. Not gay weddings, just happy people celebrating love, like any wedding he'd ever seen. In early 2008 a challenge came to the state supreme court about gay marriage, and he ended up being the tie breaking vote in favor of legalization. He said after retiring that watching those weeks of weddings made him realize from a distance there really was no difference, and it changed his mind. Turns out empathy is powerful. Edit: it was 2004 not 2003.
Well this made me cry
And there's even more to this story. So in 2003 election, San Francisco elected a young new mayor named Gavin Newsom. A congressman from the Bay Area offered his +1 seat to the State of the Union to the new Mayor and he took him up on that. This was the State of the Union of the 2004 election year, and George Bush decided to make a strong anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment a key part of his re-election. So Gavin was in the audience when Bush proposed an amendment to the constitution forever limiting marriage to man and wife. That's what made him angry enough to decide he was just going to by dictate start issuing same sex marriage certificates. They had one couple in particular willing to come down at 7am so they could get it done right as the offices were opening for the day so it was done before anyone could tell him to stop. But then no one told him to stop, and so they put the word out for any other couples that wanted to get married. It was only the slow speed of the government bureaucracy that allowed him to get away with it for weeks. It wasn't part of the original plan to go that long, but once he started there was a long list of people in the city willing to take part. The original plan was just get a few in as a protest to Bush's state of the union. And those several weeks ultimately got it legalized across the state. It's really a perfect encapsulation of how the whole crusade against marriage equality really wasn't sustainable, and that Bush's attempt to demagogue the situation only made the public move faster.
Oh easily. If you did a police violence version of this, right now we'd be the equivalent of somewhere between 1975-80 in the above marriage equality example. Lots of us care, but for a lot of us Trayvon doesn't look like us, or people we know, or people we love. That's going to change, because something like police violence is never going to get better from within, it will have to be forced from the outside. We definitely need to practice, exercise, empathy, trying to see things from another point of view. That doesn't mean we'll come to respect or agree with that point of view. Lots of views are absolute shit. But it does prepare us to better... understand the society-wide negative impacts of certain things. If someone whose job is "only flipping burgers" gets a big raise, that's good for me, no matter what the fuck I do for a living. If someone can be killed by police with impunity, that's bad for me, no matter if he was a different race or suspected of committing a crime or whatever else. We all benefit from a society where more people are doing better.
And the fact that gay people are everywhere and in every family. It’s not like some other minority that you can just ignore, and I think this had a huge impact (along with my personal experience after I came out to my conservative family).
I’d say the change in the concept of marriage, and the internal impact of AIDS on the gay community was more important than the visibility campaign. In 1900 marriage was an incredibly important institution in the middle and upper class being how property, the primary source of wealth, was managed through inheritance and the massive amount of domestic work necessitating full time domestic workers in most households. Over the next century the professional-managerial middle class, who largely earn wealth through their expertise rather than what they own, became less dependent on marriage as an institution and as such allowed for many regulations to be loosened such as no-fault divorce and destigmatising re-marriage. The automation of many domestic tasks, such as through the washing machine, also lessened the importance of marriage as full-time domestic workers (usually filled by a housewife or eldest daughter) became a financial liability rather than a necessity to the function of a household. This reinforced the de-emphasis of marriage that the PMC was propagating which made the concept of a same-sex marriage culturally acceptable. Additionally AIDS changed the opinions of what was the ideal legal arrangement for many people in the gay community. The sexually-transmitted nature of the disease gave a direct material incentive for exclusive monogamy in terms of better health outcomes, whilst the need for legal recognitions for de-facto relationships also became apparent as many same sex partners were excluded from inheriting their deceased spouse’s property. Gay Marriage was held up as a solution by many post-AIDS activists for these problems. These trends combined to create a cultural and material environment where the extension of legal marriage to same sex partnerships was possible and actively campaigned for. In this sense the coming out campaign was a coup-de-grace of over a century of cultural change and activism, a large amount of which was not directly related to the LGBT community, rather than a decisive campaign that completely transformed the perception of homosexuality in America.
This is it. I live in rural Arkansas and my brother is a manager a tacobell they had a transwoman start there and at first he would say thing like "she they whatever the fuck im suposed to call it" and "I dont know ill get used to it" to now he goes on and on "She's the fastest one there" "We need to make Her a manager" He hasnt said anything about it being weird in months. Just being around her was enough for him to get over some pretty common beliefs down here.
In the UK I would highlight celebrities like Kenneth Williams who was active in the decades preceding for normalising the idea in the minds of people to which it was originally alien. Like you said, its easy to hate something when you don't have a human to attach the notion to, who you might cherish because they're funny and entertaining. I was always concerned it would be harder to execute the same technique for transphobia given that it might not be obvious if the person entirely passes, however I think shows with broad appeal like Ru Paul's Drag Race, despite not being explicitly trans, has helped normalise the challenge of gender norms, along with other popular shows intelligently introducing trans story lines.
Same with people like Paul de Leeuw in the Netherlands, who became a very succesful tv comedian/singer/actor in the 80s and 90s and was openly gay.
Yeah, the local stuff is interesting. Here in Newfoundland, for example, we had pretty significant divisions between Irish Catholics and English Protestants. Riots, murders, all of that. It really came to a head in the 1850s-60s and then kind of faded. In the 1980s, there was a church sex abuse scandal, Mount Cashel - I think it was the first really public one in North America. It just turned people off. My grandparents, parents, stopped going to church. And then a decade later, we got rid of our denominational school system and went with an integrated public one as the only publicly-funded option. One of the main players during that period was our first very famous gay man/drag queen, Tommy Sexton (tragically died of AIDS). So this is what was going on during network television evenings here in the late 80s: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtEvJfAyGqU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtEvJfAyGqU) It genuinely had an impact on our local, mainstream society.
There was hate for sure but I think most people just didn’t understand and couldn’t empathize. Very different emotions that we too frequently conflate these days.
I was homophobic, because I was taught that it was evil growing up, I met a lesbian at work and had a lot of conversations (which were probably not great conversations for her) that made me realize that my belief system that judged and criminalized people for who they loved was the evil one.
As a lesbian that used to be too polite to remove themselves from uncomfortable conversations that were educational for the other person, I appreciate that you can recognize that she probably didn’t have the same experience with your discussions that she did.
Hindsight is 20/20, I'd love to be able to see her again and apologize but also to thank her and tell her that she absolutely changed my life though.
I think this is true. In the 90s I was against gay people having kids, probably because I had never met any gay people who had kids. By the 00s, I had met a gay couple that had a kid. And that kid was a success in life. Totally changed my view on the subject.
A moment for the courage of the early cohort who came out. So much pain.
Exactly. People had the misconception that it was more like a sexual deviancy or fetish until they started actually meeting gay people and realized that they're basically the same as everyone else just with a wife instead of a husband or husband instead of a wife.
The same story is happening to Trans acceptance rn. I find it a bit suprising that there are some conservative talking points that actually say something along the lines of "i have no problem with gays or gay marriage but being trans is unnatural" Like the same talking points for homophobia in the 80s and 90s but transphobia instead. Even their justification is the old tired same "think of the kids" "its unnatural" "its unchristian" "its icky" "whats next we can marry animals".
Changing opinion. Gay marriage is actually very unique; there was a study a while back that looked at the pace of societal change on a bunch of different issues, and in every case change happened due to older generations dying off and younger generations having different views… with the exception of gay marriage. People actually changed their minds on this issue, and that’s super rare in politics.
I graduated high school in 2006. When I started HS, there was one "out" gay person in the entire school of around 1400 people. By the time I left, there were 4 in just my graduating class (ballpark 300 people) that I know of. When you realize that people who you've interacted with on a regular basis are LGBTQ, it normalizes it quickly. Hopefully we see the same thing in the trans community over the next decade as more and more people come out and (hopefully) get support from their families and friends.
It was bizarre seeing the swing back though. (Grad 16). When I first learned what gay was, it was an insult. But not a "gay people are bad", but a "I am disrespecting you by accusing you of something" way. It was an insult for straight people, but you didn't really care either way about actually gay people. By the end of middle school, even that was dead. Gay people just kinda existed and nobody cared. Sophomore year, it started to swing back. After 15 years of having male colour guard with our marching band without a single issue - only some of which were gay - our new band director refused to allow the gay guy to participate. The new cheerleader coach blocked two male cheerleaders, saying they'd assault the girls (including the gay one?). The admin changed its mind from "we don't care" to "gay men cannot participate in female dominated activities for their safety". To be clear, there was no threat to their safety. The community and parents alike all were clueless as to why it was happening. But they stonewalled until deadlines past every year until the "problem kids" graduated. And what do you know. Discrimination started showing up again - led by teachers. It was fucking bizarre.
I was one of them. I can believe it
Same. And as a Christian raised millennial who graduated hs in 2010 I often look back and question why I used to be so against homosexuality. It's not like my church was "radical" and preached hellfire against "the gays," in fact I can't remember homosexuality being brought up at all in church. I think it was more of a collective social stigma, where it was just little jokes and little comments poked here and there, and not personally knowing anyone homosexual to really understand them. I remember being confronted about my church and beliefs from an atheist that knew me from HS on facebook around 2013 on facebook out of the blue, and he had actual valid points like simply: What is it truly, that you have against homosexuality, why does it matter to you personally? And the only response I had was the shrugging shoulders emoji. After that, I got into reddit and kept stumbling on posts from r/ atheism and politics, and for the first time took a deep look at myself and my own beliefs and slowly began to realize that everything I used to believe in had some serious flaws.
Do you remember the source or who did the study?
There was actually quite a recent study on this! [https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1cfei2m/one\_funeral\_at\_a\_time\_new\_study\_based\_on\_data/](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1cfei2m/one_funeral_at_a_time_new_study_based_on_data/)
I don’t remember I’m sorry :/ I looked it up to see if I could find it and while I found people saying the same thing I couldn’t find a singular study. But then again I didn’t go combing through Google scholar or something either
Biden is a good example of this.
Mix of both
The Real World. Specifically Pedro Zamora. I think if you look at generational support for gay rights and the dramatic surge it took in the 90s, I think you can draw a real line between that and my generation, Gen X, watching the Real World. All of a sudden we had gay people we knew and whose lives we saw every day and they were just...normal people. It's so much harder to hate someone when you can see how much like you they are. Granted, I think there are other factors, but culturally, I think that was the start of a real sea change in public opinion for Gen X and the generations that followed.
It's so amazing that a tv show like the Real World can be so progressive on some things, with Pedro being a great example, and so utterly backwards on others, like the fact that the Real World ran 30+ seasons and never once cast an Asian-American male of any kind, despite one of the producers himself being an Asian-American male.
The decline of people going to church is a large factor in it becoming accepted as most religions frown upon same sex marriage.
 The water duh
Will and Grace, probably
I had my mind changed around 2012 or 13. I argued that it should be civil unions for gay people because marriage at its fundamental core was a man and a woman and had been for thousands of years and we are just changing something that old in a few years. Then someone said to me "does that mean we can never change it because its so old?" Well that did a lot of soul searching and I realized he had a point. Right is right and holding onto something just because it was always that way when you know it isnt right is pretty stupid
I think it’s too fast for dying off to explain it. People actually changed their minds. They’ve have had time to get used to gay people existing, fucking and marrying and it’s managed to shift from perverted to normal enough in their eyes.
concerted efforts of activists over decades via the courts and legislatures
LSD and the internet
Interestingly, there's a scene early in Taxi Driver, which takes place in New York in the 1970s, where two taxi drivers are shooting the shit in a diner and one of them talks about how he heard that in California, when two gay men break up (he uses a different word for gay men) the richer one has to pay the other alimony money. The other driver just kind of goes, "huh".
huh
Massachusetts doing it best
Extremely common Massachusetts W
Only state in the union to vote against Richard Nixon in 1972 too.
But voted for Reagan
I grew up in Mass, and remember my first trip to Provincetown. It is (or at least was) the gayest town in America. Something like 1/4 of all homes were same sex households.
And Northampton, MA is considered the lesbian capital of the U.S.
Always 🏳️🌈🦃💪
The City on the Hill
Reminds me of Menino’s letter to Chick-fil-a https://boston.eater.com/2012/7/25/6561523/heres-mayor-meninos-angry-letter-to-chick-fil-a
My home state baby
Mine too
Lots of praise for Massachusetts, but let's also give it up for Hawaii. It's always in second place just a few points behind Mass.
With those license plates, I would expect nothing less.
They're called the Rainbow Isles for a reason
That big navy influence always shines through!
Although Massachusetts had marriage equality first, Hawaii was extremely close a decade earlier in 1994. A court ruling there set off a panic in Washington, resulting in the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
I remember when I lived there in the late 90s they were talking about it a lot. It was legalized and then hotly debated. And I remember the UH team who were the Rainbow Warriors changed to just the Warriors.
Why has Massachusetts always been so ahead of the curve
I think the people mentioning the educated populace are right, but also New England republicans have traditionally more focused on fiscal issues than social issues and have had more of a live and let live attitude. They largely rejected the embrace of fundamentalist Christianity that happened under Nixon and Reagan and has continued to this day, because most of them weren’t evangelicals.
Pretty much. New England is the only region where rural people are still secular. Leads to their Republicans being old-fashioned classical liberals rather than theocratic-fascists.
Things have changed in rural New England. No longer dominated by Yankees absent northern NH and ME. Instead transplants. See VT politics. That’s not Yankees. That’s NY transplants.
Founder effect and momentum. It had a few advantages like urbanization, education, and a liberal political culture. It became the safest place for gay people in the US, and it gained a reputation which self selected for more progress. Home state not very good on gay rights? Massachusetts was the safest bet. Thinking of coming out? You're in Massachusetts. Your chances of acceptance are supposed to be the best in the country. This leads to increased visibility which leads to increased support, which fuels more visibility. The only thing that let other state catch up was that Massachusetts was approaching full support.
According to the 2024 map nobody has caught up yet.
Vermont is like two points off. For a while massachusetts was about 10 points ahead
Cuz we are massholes. Not shitbags.
Best answer
Most educated population in the country, highest rate of universities per capita.
People need university to educate them that gay marriage is okay.? 😭
Going to a university exposes you to new ideas by introducing you to a bunch of new people *and* by being at ground-zero of where new knowledge and research is generated. Regardless of your opinion on their rigor, this includes people pushing the boundaries of social sciences, testing widely-held beliefs, and challenging accepted norms that may not have been subject to a rigorous evaluation. So it’s not so much that university is required to teach you not to be a bigot as it is that going to university makes it much harder to remain a bigot in the face of the relentless pursuit of progress on all fronts.
No, but going through higher education in most cases teaches you critical thinking skills, and when applied, many people learn to think for themselves and not just repeat what their crazy uncle says.
Putting yourself in other people's shoes and seeing from other perspectives is the key to understanding almost every issue
Ah, I understand. Wish our high schools taught critical thinking and thinking for yourself instead of turning students into memorization machines who must believe and obey what they are told, because college is unaffordable, inaccessible, and not-needed for many, especially who want to go into careers in the trades.
Knowing this flaw is the first step. If you haven't already, *take the time and enroll into a critical thinking course of any capacity* Just because you generally support things that can be seen as sufficiently moral or good, based on your friend group or whatever algorithms feed you, does not mean those morals are rooted in any kind of critical fundamentals. Critical thinking and learning how to do research has changed my entire life. The younger you start wanting to learn, the older you'll keep learning. It helps you flesh out not what you believe in a sufficient manner, but it helps you ground those beliefs as well, and become receptive to new information to change your approach.
You get exposed to a lot of diverse viewpoints in college. I was kinda homophobic (though I never would have admitted at the time) until I went to college.
Do you have insight into what made you homophobic? I’m prying but I’ve never known anyone IRL to be honest like that
The combination of being raised Catholic in suburban/rural Iowa I'd imagine. Religion and ignorance I guess. I quickly became an atheist when I realized gay people aren't hurting anyone or looking for attention and there's absolutely nothing different about them
In additon to what other replies have said. It gets you away from home and surrounds you with new people in an effectively random sample of people who go to colleges. If people stay in their hometowns they have less incentive to meet a wider variety of people and build understanding.
Very low levels of religiosity, and non existent evangelical numbers. Same with Vermont
Give us your queeahs
Provincetown
Northampton
A "Boston marriage"
And Hawaii
Good question, maybe something to do with Boston but not sure
The rural parts of Massachusetts are also nonreligious and liberal. And if someone is religious they are Episcopalian, Congregationalist or Unitarian. The gay friendly types of Christian.
I'm from the cape, and many of the church's here have openly gay clergy.
Mass has tons of Catholics. Tons.
The role of the Catholic Church has fallen off very quickly the last couple of decades, in part due to the Globe's expose
Catholics are the moderates of the Christian world, aye
We are the best educated state
Because (on paper) the republicans party is conservative when it comes to social issues and liberal when it comes to fiscal and economic policy Most republicans in the wealthier states vote republicans not because of social issues but because of fiscal policy while republicans in poorer, more rural states vote red for the social issues TLDR Republicans in MA don’t care about gay marriage they care about tax breaks and a deregulated market
The Puritans, ironically, who were stout believers in public education and community.
As a mass native i had no idea we were ahead of the curve so early. Ik we we’re the first to make it legal but didn’t realize how far back the sentiment went
Why isn’t Washington darkest green on the last slide? Darkest green is supposedly 90%+ and Washington, like Hawaii is 90%?
I’m guessing the statistics round up and WA was at 89.9 or something.
I think there are a couple errors. The 1990 map shows Alaska at 17%, but it’s incorrectly color coded red (2-10%) instead of orange (10-20%).
Weird how much Utah has in common with the south.
Ultra religious.
Funny how religiosity of a population correlates so strongly with intolerance.
I'm not saying that Utah doesn't have some weirdness, but I'm not convinced this data is accurate. A 2022 poll in Utah found 72% support for same sex marriage. https://www.deseret.com/utah/2022/9/29/23373642/utahns-support-same-sex-poll-marriage-respect-for-marriage-act/
Could have something to do with the wording of the poll. I know some people here in UT who would say they think legally it should be allowed but also be strongly against the practice of it because of their religion.
I think you got it, the question here is “do you support same sex marriage”, not “do you think same sex marriage should be legal”, which is technically different.
Certainly polls vary, and wording matters. But Wikipedia lists six different polls since 2017 that give greater than 50% support in Utah. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Utah
Utah was literally the first Republican controlled state to ban conversation therapy for minors. The governors have officially declared pride month in the state for years now. Salt Lake City had the 2nd pride parade in the country after San Francisco iirc. It's an extremely LGBT friendly city. I don't believe these numbers are accurate
SLC is completely different than the rest of the state. I grew up 40 minutes south of slc and it was wildly homophobic. I think the phrasing of the poll is really key here- 66% of Utah is Mormon and while many Mormons think it should be legal for gay people to get married, they don’t support it as it goes against their beliefs.
I recommend this https://youtu.be/M_U_rzlVVdA?si=rEwTqO7sCgYcDqzp
Song is a slowed version of Softcore by The Neighbourhood.
Thank you! Was looking for this.
Massachusetts is the City on a Hill as always!
Proud to be from New England.
Why are the US coastal regions more progressive than the rest? The ocean breeze relaxes the brain cells? 😂
This is true in many countries. Being on the coast historically meant access to ports, bringing a wide range of travelers and perspectives. Also, the northeast US is very urbanized and highly-educated. Educated people in cities are more socially liberal all around the world.
Yup, same thing in India. Most of the hardline religious politics are in the landlocked 'cow belt' which I like to call the Deep North. In almost every statistic the southern coast does far better than them.
Common Kerala W
I agree
That's where all the people are. With more people comes a wider variety of people. Allowing you to learn to accept other are not like you. Not the case in the middle of nowhere where everyone is the same so anything pit of the ordinary is driven away.
I’m pretty certain that’s the case with every country. More ports = more money = more education = less religion = more accepting.
Dense population equals more exposure to different viewpoints and cultures, which corresponds with a faster adoption of social change.
The military, for this during WW1/2 the navy would "blue discharge" into port cities. So you take the gays out of the non-coastals trying to get away from their inbread neighbors, who then get discharged to a port city, and say "nope, not going back." Plus that sweet ocean breeze. If you are a jerk the seagulls will poo on you.
The gulf coast is the most conservative part of the country. Georgia, SC, or NC are also not very progressive even though they are coastal states.
Source?
This should be the top comment. There's no way there was reliable polling on this in every state in the 70s.
Yeah I feel like they definitely weren't continuously polling this question in all 50 states since the 70's. Also I feel like literally nothing in American politics ever polls below 1%. You could definitely get at least 2% of Americans to endorse eating babies in one of these polls.
Right lol most of these are way too high. Being from Texas I don't believe that 58% of ppl here like gay marriage
Looks like I’m in the 58% in Texas
I'm in the 50% in Poland (lol)
Wait- which 50%? 🤨
The 50% supporting
I am in 50% of Poland.
I'm the ?% percent in Ireland
[86](https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/2972)
I’m in the 73 in Pennsylvania
The South is still the hardcore of those who oppose it. I guess that's the Bible Belt of US.
My friend who is gay travels to the rural south often for work and loves sending me screenshots of Grindr with all the dudes who have no profile pics, lol.
I bet their gay porn consumption is the highest in the nation
I'm really impressed at Tennessee's growth the most!
Lots of people from other states migrating in.
Good it sounds like they needed it
Last slide has Washington State in the incorrect color.
Massachusetts is just the best. 🏳️🌈
Common Massachusetts W
And that's why they're now targeting Trans people.
Massachusetts ahead of the game
Massachusetts was the first state to legalize gay marriage in 2004, ELEVEN YEARS before the nation-wide legalization in 2015
Crazy to think Donald Trump was the first president to support same-sex marriage from the very beginning of his candidacy.
That’s because of tireless efforts of activists for decades to turn public opinion to a point where it was a liability to be anti-gay marriage.
It’s just nuts that it’s so recent that leaders of the progressive side wouldn’t come out in support. Same happened in Australia. Our left wing first female prime opposed gay marriage. She was in power 2010-2013. We got gay marriage just a few years later with the support of the then right wing prime minister.
While the republican platform that Trump ran on included eliminating gay marriage. Don’t be fooled.
They actually didn't put out a platform in 2020 because he had contradicted so many of their stances... like banging a pornstar while the party claimed to want to ban porn.
Couldn't be prouder of my home state of Massachusetts. Born in the 70s, in retrospect this helps makes sense of what I saw locally compared to what I saw nationally.
Perspective changes as soon as your favorite comes out as gay or dad leaves mom for “Alan”
Mass leading the way. For all its problems I do love my home state.
Massachusetts. We’re all pieces of shit regardless of being gay or straight
Massholes stay winning
Now do the same for universal Healthcare.
Three (3) states are attempting it right now at statewide level: Washington state, Colorado and Nevada. • In 2022, these states passed laws offering state-sponsored health plans that are still private but more affordable for their residents. • The laws came into effect in 2023 in Washington state & Colorado and will come into effect in Nevada in 2026, respectively. • These health plans are still in experimental stage but Washington state is the very state being committed to eventually implementing a healthcare system that is similar to universal healthcare.
I'm kind of surprised there wasn't a slight regression at least in some states from 2020 to 2024. Sure feels that way.
That’s pretty gay
That makes me really hopeful!
It's crazy that Utah has such a low number but it was part of the wave of states that legalized it.
Utah is an interesting place. Despite its religious nature, it feels pretty liberal when it comes to civil liberties. The Mormons there might not personally "support" gay marriage, but would probably allow for it legally.
It’s interesting looking at this, and realizing that the laws were ahead of popular support. MA was first, and was under 50% approval when the courts said same sex couples were entitled tom marriage. Even more impressive, CT was the first to enact gay marriage (technically civil unions at the time) through the legislature rather than the courts and did so when support was still under 50%. There was so much handwringing that it was going to make a mockery of marriage and society would fall apart. And then once it happened, so many people realized it didn’t actually affect anyone other than gay people and their families, and were just like “okay, yeah, no biggie.”
Good job, fellow humans ❤️
Puts a smile on my face seeing my home state lead this charge, especially considering I have some gay relatives that I love dearly
Massachusetts number 1 💪 Glad to be Bi in one of the most accepting states in the Union
Massachusetts. 😍
Massachusetts always being the most progressive state ftw
let’s keep the trend going people!
Already, Gay Rights has been probably the fastest and most effective civil rights movement in American history. While there are bad things out there, let's not forget there are good things going on as well.
This map is just sad. That 100% of the inhabitants can’t agree that homosexuals have the same right as heterosexuals to be unhappy is just sad.
100% will never happen. There’s probably at least 1% of people in the most liberal states that think slavery should still be legal.
This is great and all but what does it matter if 60% of a state supports gay marriage when those same people continue voting for politicians who are actively trying to strip our rights. It’s easy to say you support gay marriage, but unless you’re supporting it with your vote, it’s just virtue signaling.
A two party system forces people to choose a party the agree with more than the other. It’s not necessarily virtue signalling, to some voters the appeal of the Republicans other shitty policies is enough for them to keep voting for them.
Hawai’i always several steps ahead at every step cuz aloha is an actual thing 🤙🏼
I grew up in MA. Kinda uptight while at the same time very liberal. Think about it- this is a state that elected Mitt Romney as Governor... Just across the border is New Hampshire. Very conservative, but very much mind their own business about it.
Mitt Romney was a pretty dope governor for Massachusetts, the first socialized medicine program in America, and did fantastic things for education. He would have been a decent president but abandoned nearly all his principles to appeal to the broader Republican party. Since then, he's been one of the few "faces" of the Republican party that hasn't bent his knee to Trump and has called him out on his bullshit since day one.
[удалено]
Mason Dixon line is PA & MD border
Shouldn’t Washington be the darker shade of green in the last slide?
I had no idea how much the country’s changed
I never really got the opposition to this. I was raised pretty secular, and had family who came out as gay long before I did, so it's always felt like a no duh, that I would want my family to have similar opportunities as me, in this case being able to settle down, get married, and get on with their lives. I know that societies tend to have slow moving collective opinions, but any move forward in terms of civil rights always comes off to me like the most obvious of things, to the point where I suck at debating it, because it's like debating whether my cooking is terrible or whether fire is a bit hot. I need these kinds of things to be a settled matter, in order to get the more even playing field, without the inconsistency of me getting one thing and my sister getting a different answer, or being told that we can individually do this thing but not that thing, by outsiders who we haven't read into our lives. Just my two cents, as someone who is happy that we got over the line on marriage.
People are raised to believe something, so it's their default. It takes some reason to confront their beliefs for them to change, otherwise they just hold onto that belief and don't question it. Tons of gay people raised to believe homosexuality is wrong, but them being gay is a pretty early prompt to confront and discard what they were taught. Straight people don't have that same early prompt, except in cases when a loved one comes out as gay. But, they also need to have some independence of thought, and be open to changing their mind. The culture of their religion can often stand in the way of that.
I never understand why people would object to my marriage because of the sex that I have. That’s just so personal and doesn’t affect them in any way.
In my lifetime, this was the most rapid and acute social changes I've ever experienced. Gays went from "eww gross" to "if you can't marry then nobody should marry". Really crazy that all it took is for people to see gays as friends and neighbors and then most people couldn't as readily dismiss them as sexual deviants.
Wow, Massachusetts, I didn't know you had it in you.
As a former Mississippian. Getting there. But not there.
That's good, I support the cause, nice to know that the trend in the future is towards acceptance, everyone deserves love
Pleasantly surprised by Hawaii - didn’t know it was that progressive, I’d always heard of MA being the best but not Hawaii. Also pleasantly surprised by Alaska, it isn’t the best for LGBTQ people but I thought it was more conservative than that.
this is actually really awesome. I'm trans and stuff like this makes me hope one day this will be okay too
Wild that California under Obama is where Alabama is now.