Kicking and Screaming

With this week’s Supreme Court review of California’s Prop 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act, it’s pretty clear we’re at a crossroads with respect to marriage equality in the United States. What’s also clear is that the fight is all but over. Gay marriage will be available in all 50 states if not in a few months, definitely within a few years. The progress has been remarkable; a decade ago no one would have predicted that nine states would allow gay marriage in 2013 with more considering it, and younger Americans are in favor of it by huge margins.

The dream of conservatives, that somehow we will roll back the progress that’s been made and strip marriage rights from the people in those states that allow it is inconceivable. The fact is that there are NO legitimate, non-religious arguments against gay marriage and we can’t maintain discriminatory laws because YOUR religion says it’s okay to hate gays. Even before the Supreme Court, with years to prepare, the lawyers for the proponents of Prop 8 couldn’t name any specific harm from allowing gays to marry. All that talk about marriage being solely to promote responsible procreation is absurd on its face.

What’s sad is that unless the Supreme Court takes this chance to make a bold decision now, unless they decide that all people deserve equal treatment under the law and declare marriage bans invalid, we’ll be stuck with a state by state approach that will keep gays as second class citizens in some of the redder parts of the United States for years to come. Because a shrinking minority of people can’t get over their bigotry, we’ll have to keep fighting to extend basic civil liberties to all Americans. The bigots can’t win and we’ll be forced to drag them kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century. A fight that will be costly, time-consuming, and painful.

It would be much better if the Supreme Court ended the fight now. Conservatives will bitch and moan for some time, but they’ll get over it. Just like they did in the nine states that allow gay marriage already.