Dec 05, 2003  | COMMENTS     

GAY MARRIAGE IS as inevitable as Monday morning. And to many, about as appealing. Regardless of your stance, all you have to do is follow the bouncing gavel of judicial history to hear the banging toward inevitability.

First, it’s important to note that the courts usually reflect rather than direct society. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court declared segregation unconstitutional in 1954 — just as the Civil Rights Movement got traction.

The court recognized rights for the poor during the war on poverty and rights for women during the women’s liberation movement. The court is so influenced by prevailing public sentiments that it often overturns its own decisions.

What else explains the court finding segregation constitutional in Plessy vs. Ferguson then declaring it unconstitutional 60 years later in Brown vs. Board of Education? The Constitution didn’t change. We did.

What else explains the court finding sodomy laws constitutional in Bowers vs. Hardwick and 17 years later declaring it unconstitutional in Lawrence vs. Texas? The Constitution didn’t change. We did.

THE CONSTITUTION WON’T change about marriage, but we will. That’s because public attitudes toward sexual orientation vary wildly by age. The majority of Americans don’t want to open marriage to gay couples, but if you look closely the numbers are going to flip.

According to the Pew Research Center’s latest poll, attitudes toward gays correlate strongly with age and socio-economic status: White, better-educated, affluent folks are much more tolerant of homosexuality than the average American. Older adults disapprove of gay marriage by a factor of 4 to 1, while younger adults are split right down the middle.

The demographics of reform practically guarantee that one day public opinion will support opening marriage to same-sex couples. Exhibit A: the annual survey of 250,000 college freshmen, conducted by the higher education research institute at UCLA.

In 1977, the survey found that 47 percent of freshmen thought it was important to have “laws against homosexual relationships.” By 2002, only 25 percent agreed. That’s a staggering 22-point decline.

As younger adults get older, they’re likely to carry their social beliefs with them. It doesn’t take a clairvoyant to predict the future: The next generation of justices will come from this gay-friendly group. And when that happens, the Robed Ones will do what they’ve always done: constitutionalize the consensus.

GLOBALIZATION IS YET another factor contributing to the inevitability of gay marriage. The rest of the western world has far more tolerant views of homosexuality than America. A good deal of these countries allow gays to serve openly in their armed forces. And as for gay marriage, the Netherlands allows it and as of this year, so do parts of Canada. As goes the world, so goes the United States.

The U.S. Supreme Court will one day hear the case against allowing gays to marry; just as it one day heard the case prohibiting any minority from accessing the rights enjoyed by the majority.

Every landmark civil rights case has an eerie similarity. Reformers argued equality, resisters predicted doom. Advocates appealed to our conscience, the opposition appealed to our fears.

There are no substantive differences between the black, women and gay civil rights movements. Proponents are propelled by the injustices they want to correct, opponents are motivated by the social order they want to preserve.

The players changed, but the roles didn’t. The issues changed, but the dialogue didn’t. The fights changed, but the rulings didn’t. Reformers didn’t win every battle but they won every war.

In time, the reformers always win. It’s not so much because of the rightness of their causes as the righteousness of our country. America has change in its blood the way other countries have permanence in theirs. Resistance to America’s nature is futile.

Gay marriage isn’t on the horizon, but it is in the stars. It’s inevitable as Monday mornings. It just won’t be a Monday morning anytime soon.