Same-Sex Marriage Did Not End Up Harming Fabric of Society or Heterosexual Marriages

As we commence Gay Pride Month, I reflect on the progress that has been made for LGBT rights, much like I have in previous years. It seems like only yesterday that religious conservatives were making the case that legalizing same-sex marriage would ruin society. If you read this brief from the Far-Right Family Research Council, allowing for same-sex marriage would mean fewer marriages, less monogamy, and more divorce. The trope that same-sex marriage would harm families and ruin society was a common one among social conservatives in the early 2000s. It turns out that their fear-mongering was based on conjecture and nothing else. 

Last month, the nonprofit research organization RAND Corporation came out with a study showing how unsubstantiated it ended up being (Karney et al., 2024). After examining 96 studies that spanned over 20 years, the researchers at RAND concluded there was no adverse effect of same-sex marriage on the general U.S. population, especially for different-sex couples. There was no retreat from marriage or an increase in non-marital co-habitation as naysayers wrongly predicted. There also was not a negative shift of young adults towards marriage. If anything, the researchers found some evidence that legalizing same-sex marriage actually increased marriage rates for everyone.

This same RAND study found that same-sex marriage has unambiguously been a positive for homosexuals and same-sex couples, whether that was a decline in syphilis, HIV, and AIDS; stabler relationships; higher earnings; higher rates of ownership; and lower rates of hate crimes against LGBT individuals. 

Allowing for same-sex marriage is also good for the economy. According to research from the Williams Institute, 293,000 same-sex marriages boosted local economies by $3.8 billion within the first five years of Obergefell v. Hodges. There are also the economic benefits of marriage more generally, whether it is the ability to better pool resources, qualify for loans, tax incentives, or the potential for reduced insurance costs. The economic benefits make sense, especially when I look back on a piece I wrote in 2017 about the economic costs of homophobia. 

In spite of what social conservatives imagined, the sky did not fall. Marriage equality did not weaken the marriages of heterosexual couples. If anything, allowing for consenting adults to enter the contract of marriage strengthened the institution. Intuitively, that makes sense because who consenting adults decide to marry does not affect anyone else, especially given the lack of a clear causal mechanism. Plus, given how stabilizing of a force marriage can be and how it creates kin networks, it does not surprise me to see that extending marriage rights to same-sex couples ended up being a net benefit to society. In addition to same-sex marriage advancing freedom, we can empirically add "improving the institution of marriage" to the list of reasons why same-sex marriage should remain legal.