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Same-sex marriage legalization associated with reduced antigay bias
- danschumann 8y agoSo the fact that weed is illegal means there could be an anti-smoker bias? One based purely on the law and not any other reason? Probably. I still say legalizing pot smokers should be the next civil right.
- beering 8y agoCertainly, it would remove a lot of the stigma of pot as contraband and pot smokers as criminals. Fine, upstanding citizens don't want to be associated with criminals, right?
- danschumann 8y agoTrue. Like in Pineapple Express when he doesn't like his drug dealer thinking they are friends.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoRegardless of the type of business doing business with friends is generally ill advised and often leads to hard feelings and broken friendships.
- chongli 8y agoOne based purely on the law and not any other reason? I don't think so. People already have a bias against tobacco smokers and that doesn't have any criminal law component. Habitually smoking (or vaping) any substance is viewed as a vice and a moral shortcoming. It also tends to make a person smell bad and people naturally feel a bias against bad smells. The fact that smokers are accustomed to the smell and don't notice it is also frustrating. It's an externality.
- Gibbon1 8y agoPot smoking is another issue that becomes utterly uncontroversial when normalized.
- mfoy_ 8y agoIf you consider system oppression to be a form of validation for bigots, then it follows that removing that validation would result in reduced bigotry.
- drocer88 8y agoWe need to legalize polygamy now. Anti-muslim and anti-mormon bigotry has gone on too long.
- dashundchen 8y agoWhy not? In a secular society marriage is just a legal contract, regardless of the participants' religion or lack thereof. If there is an appropriate legal structure, all participants are freely consenting, and are not causing anyone harm, why shouldn't they be allowed?
- greygatch 8y agoHistorically speaking, monogamy and civilization seem to go hand-in-hand. Undermining the former might undermine the latter.
- TomMarius 8y agoHistorically speaking horse was the only mean of transportation, hygiene was nonexistent, disease spread quickly and killed millions, warlords owned nearly everything for most of the recorded history, people used to believe in gods... (all these factors could contribute to monogamy) That something was valuable and important in the history doesn't mean is it today. Do you seriously think our world is in any way similar to the world even just 100 years ago?
- lovich 8y agoHistorically speaking, slavery and civilization go hand in hand. Undermining the former might undermine the latter. That's not to say that not having access to legal polygamous marriage and owning people are equal but to show that the argument doesn't really stand on it's own. The correlation between monogamy and civilization isn't necessarily causitative. Also I'm not sure that monogamy is as paired up with civilization as you claim. Haven't Kings and leaders for large portions of history been known for their harems?
- lr4444lr 8y agoProving a compelling causal relationship between the first and the second of those factors is a very tall order, IMHO.
- otabdeveloper1 8y agoYou use the full force of the state to bash people for crimethink and they eventually comply? Wow, such news, so surprise!
- matchbok 8y agoBe better.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoMakes sense. People respect the authority of the law/government to varying degrees. Of course their opinion is swayed when the government officially sanctions something. People don't have strong, let alone informed opinions about tons of things so legality is a signaling mechanism for good/bad.
- umvi 8y agoI agree. Many people (perhaps those without religion or some other mechanism that provides an external moral code) just adapt the law as their moral code: if it's legal, it's moral; if it's illegal, it's immoral. Of course, this fact is always obfuscated when talking about drug legalization because it is harmful to the legalization effort to suggest that legalizing a drug will lead to increased usage/acceptance of said drug (usually the opposite claim is made - that legalizing the drug will reduce usage)
- intopieces 8y agoNormalization was always the concern for both those for and against same sex marriage. It was never about the benefits or the sanctity, not really.
- DoreenMichele 8y agoSure, gays who got thrown out into the street after their lifelong partner died and the parents inherited the house weren't bothered by that in the least. Keeping the house was never one of their goals. (Does this need a sarcasm tag? Or can people figure that out on their own?)
- intopieces 8y agoThe problem you mentioned did not require marriage per se, it just made it easier. Inheritance and visitation and all the legal stuff could have been conferred by domestic partnership. Marriage, in this case, was somewhat besides the point. Normalization has a much greater impact than property rights.
- DoreenMichele 8y agoMany years ago, I read an interesting article about an idealistic young hetero couple cohabiting. They chose to have a baby together. The guy began saying "My wife and I just had a baby" so people would actually congratulate him. When he said "My girlfriend just had a baby" people were all "Oh, sorry, dude. That sucks." Trying to arrange health coverage, wills and a zillion other things involved jumping through so many hoops they were considering getting married because a lot of those things would be automatic or vastly easier if they were married. Normalization isn't insignificant. Neither are the 169 rights a gay college professor stated in one of my classes were conferred by marriage.
- intopieces 8y ago>Neither are the 169 rights a gay college professor stated in one of my classes were conferred by marriage. None of those rights have meaning without normalization. I think of this, sometimes, when I consider moving out of California. My husband was in the hospital once. I wasn't sure he was conscious or not; I had to tell the receptionist who I was to find out what room he was in. He didn't think twice, I was able to proceed without incident. Would the same have happened if I lived in rural Texas? Sure, marriage is legal everywhere for us. The law is on our side. But the law doesn't mean anything if the people standing between you and your husband don't respect it.
- rossdavidh 8y agoSo, my two reactions: 1) duh 2) but, proving cause vs. effect seems tricky here, since which states legalized was in no way assigned randomly. An accelerating decline in antigay bias would be exactly what we should expect to happen around the time the legislature or courts see which way the wind is blowing, and legalize gay marriage. Not that I disbelieve the conclusion, but this doesn't seem like it would be very convincing evidence if I weren't already convinced.
- bunderbunder 8y agoMy thoughts, too. If you've got to pick one, the much more parsimonious explanation would be that people's attitudes are influenced by the attitudes of their friends and acquaintances. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if it's a mix of both. I'm sure people's ethical judgments are influenced by the law, too. It's the main reason I can think of why, for example, alcohol tends to be so very much more socially acceptable than marijuana in places where the one is legal and the other is not.
- rossdavidh 8y agoSure, I also believe it is a mix of both. But, this study is probably overestimating the degree to which the legalization is responsible for the change in attitudes. Also, it is probably "only" accelerating a change that was going to happen anyway. For example, there were times and places when divorce was legal, but did not become "accepted" socially for a generation or several. So, I don't think the causation primarily goes from legalization-->social attitudes. But, I agree it's probably a mix.
- thatoneuser 8y agoYeah I think the science is flaky but the intuition is so strong I'll give it a pass :/
- charliesharding 8y agoThis title is misleading considering their findings. Only in states that were already moving towards legalization and reduced bias did you see a sharper reduction after federal legalization. States that weren't moving towards legalization only dug in their heels and had increased bias after federal legalization. Looks like another case of the government trying to speak for everyone with a one-size-fits-all solution and only serving to polarize people further. "Although states passing legislation experienced a greater decrease in bias following legislation, states that never passed legislation demonstrated increased antigay bias following federal legalization."
- obviuosly 8y agoBaumeister had a pretty interesting idea on where antigay bias comes from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016748701630277X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016748701... > Men compete to amass material resources, with the goal of getting a good sex partner. > Men compete in groups to amass resources, so men see other men not just as sexual rivals but also as coalition partners. > Male homophobia is often not about sex but rather invokes the stereotype that a homosexual man will not be an effective coalition partner.
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- jawns 8y agoThere was a 2017 study that looked at people's attitudes related to Obergefell: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28758838 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28758838 One of its interesting findings: > a five-wave longitudinal time-series study using a sample of 1,063 people found an increase in perceived social norms supporting gay marriage after the ruling but no change in personal attitudes. This pattern was replicated in a separate between-subjects data set.
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- bobthechef 8y agoI can't read the article b/c of paywall, but I do wonder how they controlled for legislation vs. the effects of media, subsequent social pressure and acclimation, the higher likelihood of legislation being passed in a state already favorably disposed toward SSM, etc. Also, what is the definition of "anti-gay bias"? My guess is that any critical attitude would be classified as such which is an ideological tactic i.e. normalization through the repeated conflation of opposition with bias or even hatred. In any case, the idea that the government can play a role in normalizing certain behaviors and attitudes is not surprising. With history as my witness, all kinds of things, good and bad, have been normalized partly by government backing. In any case, whether SSM makes sense or should be recognized is not a matter of purported benefits, but a matter of principle. It doesn't take much imagination to recall evil deeds that may result in some desired effect. What matters is whether SSM should in itself be recognized. Note the use of the word recognition. Marriage is not a manufactured social construct (pace postmodern), but a natural institution that governments only have the freedom to recognize. Neither societies nor governments can arbitrarily manufacture institutions. They can pretend to do so, just as they can pass immoral "laws", but neither such ersatz laws nor such ersatz institutions have any legitimacy and thus may and must be freely rejected by citizens (coercion has forced citizens to simulate assent and submission to such false laws and institutions, of course).
- tzs 8y agoA recent episode of "Hidden Brain" [1] on NPR covered the massive reduction in anti-gay bias over the last few decades in the US. A quote from the summary of episode at the link I gave: > "This is actually one of the most surprising things in the whole history of public opinion," says Stanford sociologist Michael Rosenfeld. "There's more and more rapid change in attitudes towards gay rights in the past thirty years in the United States than there ever has been in recorded attitudes in the United States on any issue." In the episode itself, they compare how fast attitudes are changing toward various biases. If anti-gay bias continues shrinking at the rate it is currently shrinking, it will be under a decade for them to be pretty much gone. Biases about black people, on the other hand, would take about 60 years to mostly go away. Biases about skin tone...about 140 years. Biases based on ago...over 150 years. (NOTE: those are not predictions. They are simply illustrations of how rapidly or slowly those biases are changing right now. It is extremely unlikely that any particular bias is going to diminish at a constant rate from now until it is virtually gone). [1] https://www.npr.org/2019/04/03/709567750/radically-normal-how-gay-rights-activists-changed-the-minds-of-their-opponents https://www.npr.org/2019/04/03/709567750/radically-normal-ho...
- lokidokiro 8y agoSame-sex marriage legalization was because of reduced anti-gay bias. My five year old could tell you that. What a stupid article.