You've Already Lost

A happy day in Vermont as the legislature overrode Gov. Jim Douglas' (R) veto and enacted a same sex marriage law. Just last week, the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously held that a state law preventing same-sex couples from marrying violated the equal protection clause of the state constitution. This brings to four the numbers of states that allow same-sex couples to marry: MA, CT, IA and VT.

I hope these two events represent a turning point. For awhile conservatives have used the "judicial activism" bogeyman to attack gay marriage rulings (as though it isn't one of the core purposes of courts to protect the rights of disfavored minorities); the legislative victory in VT demonstrates that popular majorities (even super-majorities) favor marriage equality, at least in some parts of the country. Similarly, conservatives have dismissed gay marriage as a product of East (and West) Coast cultural degeneracy; the IA victory neutralizes that.

In the long run, the bigots are gonna lose on this issue. They're on the wrong side of history. The younger generation just doesn't see loving relationships as a problem merely because the participants happen to be gay. As, Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal points out, demographically speaking, the bigots have already lost.