Ruth Bader Ginsburg believes the US is ready for gay marriage

The US supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has said she thinks the country is ready to accept a ruling in favor of same-sex marriage, should the nation’s highest court decide to issue one later this year.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Ginsburg said she thought the change in people’s attitudes towards gay rights “has been enormous”.

“In recent years,” she said, “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.”

This week, the supreme court denied an extended stay on a federal judge’s decision that struck down Alabama’s same-sex marriage ban. Because the court declined to block the ruling, same-sex couples were able to marry for the first time in the state, which is the 37th in the US to allow same-sex marriage.

Alabama probate judges, however, have ignored the order, arguing that they are not beholden to a federal judge’s ruling. Governor Robert Bentley said he would not “take action” against such judges, putting marriage rights in the state in disarray.

This situation is expected to be ironed out by the end of June, when the US supreme court is expected to issue its final ruling on same-sex marriage rights. Ginsburg is one of the four liberal judges expected to rule in favor of marriage equality. While the rest of the court leans conservative, all eyes are on Anthony Kennedy, the court’s swing vote who has written all the majority opinions on recent same-sex marriage cases.

Ginsburg said she thought the shift in attitudes happened so quickly because more and more people realized they knew people who are gay and more gay people came out. She said that shift had helped advance the issue more quickly than racial issues, for instance, because when race came before the supreme court, communities were often racially segregated, barring people from contact with each other.

“It would not take a large adjustment – and of course we shouldn’t speak much more about this subject because one way or another it will be decided before we leave town in June,” said Ginsburg.

Ginsburg declined to speak about the court’s other major upcoming case, King v Burwell, which is the biggest legal challenge to Obamacare yet. She did, however, say the healthcare law would be an important part of President Obama’s legacy.

“Our country was just about the only western industrialized country that didn’t have universal healthcare for all of the people, and he made the first giant step in that direction,” she said. “That’s certainly one of the things he will be remembered for.”