Now, it's just "Marriage." And I wish I could say the battle was over but a certain part of the right-wing audience will rally behind politicians who swear they will overturn this Supreme Court decision (and probably the Obamacare one, too) and it will be lucrative to so vow. In some states, it might even get people elected.
I'm not sure how to phrase it but there's a connection between this attitude and the flying of the Confederate flag…this "never admit defeat" attitude among some Conservatives. I suppose if I thought about it, I could come up with a few symbols of Liberals giving up even before defeat.
There will, of course, not be a Constitutional Amendment — not about this and not about Obamacare — though that will be pledged endlessly as a great Applause Line. We don't pass Constitutional Amendments very often in this country and we certainly don't pass them for causes that don't have 75% of Americans behind them. The number of people who are fine with folks of the same gender getting hitched will only go up…as it has everywhere it's been tried with none of the predicted destruction of "straight" marriage and no visitations of locusts and frogs sent by an angry God. (Though guess what'll be blamed for the next big hurricane or earthquake.)
I must admit I never thought this would happen. I thought the pathway to legalized Same Sex Marriage would come not through the courts but through growing public acceptance. Turned out, it was both…and each bolstered the other.
Chief Justice Roberts in his dissent said that the proponents of such unions had "lost" the opportunity to let it come about through public acceptance. Yeah, the way an earlier Supreme Court decision meant that George W. Bush had "lost" the opportunity to win the presidency by actually getting more votes than Al Gore. I doubt the people who feel they "lost" by this morning's decision will be as graceful in defeat — especially the Mike Huckabees of the world.