This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind 

By Alex Tribou and Keith Collins
Updated: June 26, 2015

Eleven years after Massachusetts became the first state to allow same-sex couples to marry, the Supreme Court has now extended that right nationwide. The decision came after a wave of gay marriage legalization: 28 states from 2013 to 2015, with 36 overall prior to the Court's ruling. Such widespread acceptance in a short amount of time isn't a phenomenon unique to gay marriage. Social change in the U.S. appears to follow a pattern: A few pioneer states get out front before the others, and then a key event—often a court decision or a grassroots campaign reaching maturity—triggers a rush of state activity that ultimately leads to a change in federal law.

We looked at six big issues—interracial marriage, prohibition, women’s suffrage, abortion, same-sex marriage, and recreational marijuana — to show how this has happened in the past, and may again in the very near future.

Interracial Marriage

 prohibit interracial marriage, invalidating laws in 16 Southern states. Many Northern states had tossed out bans on interracial marriage in the decades before and after the Civil War. Thirteen others either never had a ban or repealed it before statehood.But the final push came in 1948 when California’s Supreme Court ruled in a 4-3 decision that the state’s prohibition on interracial marriage was unconstitutional. It was the first state court since Reconstruction to invalidate an interracial marriage ban. After California's ban was lifted, 13 more states followed, plus two more when Alaska and Hawaii became states in 1959.AKMANHVTMENYMIWIRICTNJPAILMNDEMDVAOHNCSCWVTNGAFLTXALINKYMSIANDMOARLASDNEKSOKMTWYCONMIDUTNVWAORCAHIAZStates that allowed interracial marriage beforethe Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. VirginiaNot yet astate when gray

Note: The 13 states that either never banned interracial marriage or repealed the ban before statehood are shown when they became states.

Sources: Ken Tanabe, founder of Loving Day; Peter Wallenstein, professor of history at Virginia Tech

Prohibition

 rocky one, with several states passing anti-drinking laws, then repealing them, then passing new ones. Most states during the late 1800s rejected attempts to pass prohibition laws, preferring to let counties and municipalities decide whether to go dry. By 1906, popular votes for prohibition meant that more than a third of the U.S. population lived in dry territory. With more local and federal politicians supporting prohibition, groups like the Anti-Saloon League gained mo-mentum and successfully pushed for statewide prohibition in 29 states.AKMANHVTMENYMIWIRICTNJPAILMNDEMDVAOHNCSCWVTNGAFLTXALINKYMSIANDMOARLASDNEKSOKMTWYCONMIDUTNVWAORCAHIAZDry states when the 18th Amendment took effectNot yet astate when gray

Note: Prohibitory laws enacted in territories that were repealed before statehood are not shown.

Source: Cherrington, Ernest H. (1920), The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States of America, Westerville, Ohio: The American Issue Press

Women's Suffrage

Update: This chart does not represent the brief period of 1797-1807 when women in New Jersey were granted voting rights.

Sources: National Constitution Center, U.S. House Archives

Abortion

 here. It ultimately may have followed the same pattern as other issues—but we'll never know, because in 1973 the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade cleared the way for legal abortions. At the time, many states had only just begun considering the question. Of the 17 states that allowed any abortions prior to Roe, only four—Alaska, Hawaii, Washington and New York—allowed women to end a pregnancy without providing a reason.By acting before a critical mass of states was in support, the Supreme Court pre-empted what had been a steady popular movement in the states toward abortion rights.

Note: Laws in Alabama, Mississippi, and Massachusetts that allowed abortions under exceptionally limited circumstances are not shown.

Source: Guttmacher Institute

Same-Sex Marriage

Update: Corrects year when same-sex marriages began in Connecticut.

Sources: National Conference of State Legislatures, Freedom to Marry

Recreational Marijuana

 head down the path of its predecessors, and it's already starting to happen. States across the country are wrestling with the idea of legal marijuana, urged on by a large and well-organized pro-legalization movement. Already, 24 states allow the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. Voters in four states — Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska — have chosen to legalize recreational pot.At least five more states are expected to consider whether to legalize recreational marijuana in 2016. For now, marijuana is a social issue still very much in its infancy.

Sources: Norml, Bloomberg Intelligence data

If the pattern holds, the marijuana legalization movement may take far less time than other issues to gain widespread acceptance. Though the pattern of social change may have remained largely the same over the years, change is happening faster now. It took almost 200 years before the Supreme Court disposed of the last state laws banning interracial marriage. The prohibition movement spanned seven decades before passage of the 18th Amendment. Now, gay couples have gone from not being able to marry in any state to being able to marry in all 50 in little more than a decade.

The time from the trigger point to federal action is even shorter. It took 19 years for the Supreme Court to follow a California court in striking down interracial marriage bans. The Supreme Court struck down bans on same-sex marriage only two years after its first pivotal decision on the issue.

 

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