Ginsburg: Americans support gay marriage

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that Americans would support a decision from the high court that gives same-sex couples the right to marry.

“I think it’s doubtful that it wouldn’t be accepted, the change in people’s attitudes on that issue has been enormous,” she said during an interview with Bloomberg news. 

{mosads}“In recent years, people have said, ‘This is the way I am.’ And others looked around, and we discovered it’s our next-door neighbor — we’re very fond of them. Or it’s our child’s best friend, or even our child. I think that as more and more people came out and said that ‘this is who I am,’ the rest of us recognized that they are one of us.”

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on the issue in April and many court watchers expect a decision by June that could settle the matter. In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down a law that barred same-sex couples from receiving federal benefits. In another move seen as a victory for the gay marriage movement, the court also chose last year not to take up challenges to federal judges who struck down gay marriage bans.

But the court ultimately decided to address the matter this year after a federal circuit court ruled in favor of the bans, creating two separate standards in the country.

Ginsburg also commented on another contentious issue facing the court this term: the Affordable Care Act. Bloomberg wrote that she “declined to speak directly about the new health-care case,” which could jeopardize subsidies in states where the health insurance exchange is run by the federal government. But she did say that the healthcare law will be a large piece of his legacy.

“Our country was just about the only Western industrialized country that didn’t have universal health care for all of the people, and he made the first giant step in that direction,” she said.