The Diffusion of Support for Same-Sex Marriage in the US Senate

Abstract

Advocates for same-sex marriage have had much to celebrate. The last few years have shown that state after state and senator after senator have declared their support for full marriage equality. Such momentum suggests that their goals will be realized sooner rather than later. In this article, we analyze when senators announce their support for same-sex marriage. Contrary to the popularly held belief that their decisions will quickly snowball into filibuster-proof numbers, we find that most of the easy successes have already been achieved. The difficulty of securing the last few votes may take much longer.

Interactional dynamics of same-sex marriage legislation in the United States

“…A first study on the diffusive process underlying senators shifting from opposing to supporting same-sex marriage can be found in [13], but only a limited dataset is considered and the roles of the individual factors mitigating the diffusion of opinions are not isolated. Specifically, this study calculates a likelihood for senators in 2013 to change their opinions based on personal characteristics (e.g.…”

“…Although significant studies have been done to determine the factors that play important roles in the increasing public support, research on the evolution of senators’ opinions, state-law on the issue of same-sex marriage and the relationships between these two indicators of public opinion is limited. A first study on the diffusive process underlying senators shifting from opposing to supporting same-sex marriage can be found in [ 13 ], but only a limited dataset is considered and the roles of the individual factors mitigating the diffusion of opinions are not isolated. Specifically, this study calculates a likelihood for senators in 2013 to change their opinions based on personal characteristics (e.g.…”

“…the number of senators who announce support for same-sex marriage that year) and political climate (e.g. announcements by the president and US Supreme Court) [ 13 ]. Here, we explore the opinion formation of senators and state-law as they evolve over 19 years preceding the national legalization of same-sex marriage and attempt to identify factors mitigating interactions between senators and states that may have affected the dynamics.…”