David Cole reminds us that the upcoming Supreme Court cases on same-sex marriage are important, but nevertheless remain just a part of a much longer, inevitable march towards full marriage equality:

Whatever the Court does will affect gay marriage only in the short term. The political tide has turned decisively in the direction of marriage equality, and nothing the Court does can stop it. Polls show that two-thirds of Americans today support recognition of gay marriage or civil unions for gay couples, and young people favor marriage equality by especially large margins. In the 2012 elections, marriage equality proponents prevailed in all four states where gay marriage was on the ballot, and President Obama’s announcement in May that he had (finally) decided to support gay marriage appears to have cost him no votes. The statistician Nate Silver has predicted, based on state-by-state demographic poll results, that by 2016, the only states that do not have a solid majority in favor of gay marriage will be in the Deep South, and that by 2024, a majority will support gay marriage even in Mississippi, which he predicts will be the longest hold-out. Gay marriage is an inevitability.

But if the Court’s decisions in the gay marriage cases may not have lasting consequences for gay marriage, they are likely to have historic significance for the legacy of the Roberts Court. If it upholds the laws at issue, its decisions will almost certainly come to be viewed as the Plessy v. Ferguson of the twenty-first century, defending and reinforcing a deeply discriminatory practice without good constitutional reason. If, by contrast, the Court rules, as it should, that marriage equality is constitutionally required, its decisions will be celebrated in the history books alongside Brown v. Board of Education. Which side would you want to be on?

Related articles

• Marriage Equality Update (andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com)
• Fate of Gay Marriage May Rest With Kennedy (newser.com)