According to a new study released
Tuesday, support for gay marriage accelerates when state bans end.
“When marriage equality policies are
introduced in states, support increases more rapidly,” researchers
at UCLA's
Williams Institute wrote. “[T]he annual rate of change is
highest among the states that adopted marriage equality.”
Researchers also estimated that if
current trends continue, 38 states plus the District of Columbia will
have majority support for marriage equality and 6 additional states
will be within 5% or less of majority support by 2016. No state will
have less than 40% support.
Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to
Marry, applauded the report's findings.
“Today’s Williams Institute report
confirms that marriage wins are a self-fulfilling engine of support:
once the freedom to marry comes to a state, people see families
helped and no one hurt, and support surges,” Wolfson said in a
statement. “The numbers solidly debunk opponents’ desperate
efforts to conjure up the specter of an impending ‘backlash’ and
underscore the unfairness of depriving people in the remaining 13
states of the informed choice that the end to discrimination
provides. Once the Supreme Court brings an end to the exclusion from
marriage in the states still left out, we can expect support to grow
rapidly there as well – a true win-win.”
“America is ready for the freedom to
marry,” he continued. “The Supreme Court can now do the right
thing, knowing that not only history, but the public today, will
vindicate a ruling to end marriage discrimination leaving no state
and no family behind.”