Nearly half the people opposed to gay marriage changed their minds in states where it became legal in 2012 and 2013
NEW YORK, Jan 27 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Support of same-sex marriage grew twice as much in U.S. states where it was made legal in recent years than in states where it had not been approved, new research shows.
Nearly half the people opposed to same-sex marriage changed their minds in states where gay marriage became legal in 2012 and 2013, according to the study by two U.S. researchers.
In states where it was not approved, a quarter of the opponents changed their minds, the research found.
Gay marriage was legal in 36 of the 50 U.S. states when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that same-sex couples have the right to marry, handing a historic triumph to the gay rights movement.
"Our findings ... support a number of studies that have not observed backlash when social movements achieve some of their policy goals," said co-author Andrew Flores, an analyst at the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, in a statement.
Despite the Supreme Court decision, a small number of elected clerks and lower-court judges have voiced opposition on religious grounds, according to Lambda Legal, an LGBT nonprofit group.
In Alabama this month, the chief justice of the state's top court ordered probate judges not to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and at least two counties stopped giving out the licenses altogether.
In Oregon, a judge who refused to perform same-sex marriages is awaiting a state Supreme Court decision that could cost him his job.
States that legalized gay marriage during the course of the study in 2012 and 2013 where opponents changed their minds included Maine, Washington, California and Maryland.
"Americans have been changing their mind on marriage equality and at ever-increasing rates," Flores said.
The paper was published in the journal Political Research Quarterly.
(Reporting by Sebastien Malo, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)
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