Marriage Tipping Points

Back a decade ago (ooooo) Hawaii said, "Why not?" to marriage equality — to be quickly legislatively stifled — Vermont passed civil unions (now known as same-sex marriage LITE), and then MA's high court rules that constitutional equal rights are just that in Goodridge. As those transpired, regressive legislators state by state, both WWII sorts and boomers alike, over-reacted with panic.

The tipping point then and in all those places was sent the big, honking message to all those queers and queer loving liberal sorts. Laws defining marriage as only between a man and a woman, often backed up by a voter-approved constitutional amendment forbidding hoe-moe-sexual marriage (oops, "marriage" always in quotes of disdain), flourished like garlic mustard poisoning the lawns of liberty. It was a trend amplifying Prez Bill Clinton's Defense of Marriage Act.

The anti-gay, anti-marriage equality forces loved to chant how 30 or 40 states forbade gay marriage, implying that was permanent. Not so fast, nasties.

We have 11 states, D.C., and a few Native American nations who have legalized SSM. Plus, CA did and will almost surely return next month when the SCOTUS stops futzing around.

Today, Minnesota's House approved SSM. The governor is ready to sign as soon as its Senate does it's proforma consent Monday.

By the bye, Illinois is likely to join the equality party this month.

The tipping point is tipped.

When Illinois and California jump in, suddenly we don't have a freak nation of a few areas approving SSM. Rather, a huge chunk of the population — both coasts and in the middle — say they actually believe in and support equality.

If, as expected, the SCOTUS, hedges on full equality nationwide, only letting CA revert to its legislatively passed SSM, we are left with a modern and primitive America. Texas and South Carolina won't want to give homosexuals American rights, dagnabbit.  Short of a Supreme Court mandate, they'll fester with their regressive stupidity as they did with race laws for a bit longer.

The point is that I was wrong. I thought getting this far would take another decade or two. Once I saw that my boomer generation was little better than our parents on gay rights, I feared for the nation until most of us from both groups had died. I, fortunately, was wrong. America is tired of the irrational and emotional crap and its distractions.

Tip that.