On Monday, the Supreme Court finally confirmed what most of us have known for a long time: same-sex marriage is coming to South Carolina, and nobody can stop it.
In Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Wisconsin and Virginia, gay couples that have been barred from equal privileges are now, as you read this, speaking their vows.
And because the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which overturned a same-sex marriage ban, has authority over South Carolina, it’s only a matter of time until that ruling falls on our fair state.
(The state, lest we forget, in which 78 percent of voters wrote unadulterated homophobia directly into the constitution seven years ago.)
When the news came out, I was chatting with a couple friends active in the LGBT community over mugs of Cool Beans coffee. After the general elation, the conversation descended into something like shellshock.
I remember hearing from one friend, brooding over her scalding hot cup, “What do we have to fight against now?”
For the national activist civil rights community, the battle for marriage equality has been one of the most socially charged debates in terms of who-can-love-whom since Loving v. Virginia.
Nothing has really gripped civil rights activists to the same extent on a national scale. From Bill Clinton’s betrayal of the gay community by passing "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" to Obama’s emergence as the first pro-marriage equality president in American history, this issue has never been out of the public eye.
So, in a large sense, the battle is nearly over. By the time the legal ripples of the Supreme Court’s decision finally subside, it’s been estimated by the New York Times that 30 states will have made same-sex marriage protections legal. The next time gay marriage comes up in the Supreme Court, it’s going to be hard to ban something that a majority of states have adopted.
It’s understandable that some activists, who have been fighting this kind of bigotry for so many years, might feel a sense of put-off fatigue, like Greek soldiers that have finally found their way home from Troy.
In 1996, a Gallup poll said 27 percent of the American populace believed that gay marriage “should be valid.” This May, the percentage had risen to 55 percent.
Something unprecedented has happened to public opinion, and it might be a while until we find out exactly what, aside from tireless work from LGBT advocates around the nation, prompted this shift.
My personal opinion is that the central truth at the heart of the debate has finally come out: that being gay is not only a form of sex, but a form of love. Through newspaper articles, pride parades and a larger public presence, that truth has finally come out.
And nothing can stop an idea that has its roots in love.