In both America and Western Europe, it would appear that the tide has now turned definitively in favour of the legalisation of same-sex marriage.
Yesterday's historic Supreme Court ruling against the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which had defined marriage as being between a man and a woman, looks likely to pave the way for equal marriage throughout the United States, while in Britain the law for England and Wales continues to make its way through Parliament, and the bill for Scotland has just been published.
Elsewhere in Europe, nine countries already recognise same-sex marriage, with more likely to follow soon. Recent years have also seen gay marriage legalised in several Latin American states, including Argentina and Brazil, as well as in South Africa and New Zealand (Australia is yet to follow suit).
So, while there are still many battles to be fought worldwide for gay rights, it seems likely that the present decade will be remembered as a key period in the advancement of equality. With this in mind, it's interesting to wonder how history will remember the groups and individuals, many of whom are positioned on the Christian Right, who fought to prevent equal marriage. How will we look back on their arguments, say, 30 years from now?
Take, for example, this statement by the US congresswoman Michele Bachman, in response to yesterday's Supreme Court ruling:
“For thousands of years of recorded human history, no society has defended the legal standard of marriage as anything other than between man and woman. Only since 2000 have we seen a redefinition of this foundational unit of society in various nations. What the Court has done will undermine the best interest of children and the best interests of the United States.”
Not that Bachman's was the most ridiculous statement to emerge yesterday. On Twitter, Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association had this gem to offer:
"The DOMA ruling has now made the normalization of polygamy, pedophilia, incest and bestiality inevitable. Matter of time."
We're likely to keep hearing these kind of arguments for some time (for a great debunking of 31 of them, see Jason Wakefield's piece for New Humanist), but it seems likely that years from now it will seem bizarre that equal marriage was ever such a contentious issue.
With opinion polls showing overwhelming support among younger generations for same-sex marriage, the tone of the present debate already feels like a desperate rear-guard action by increasingly marginalised interest groups. In a Washington Post piece on the Supreme Court ruling, Star Trek actor George Takei suggested that "Future generations will shake their heads at how narrow, fearful and ignorant we sounded today debating DOMA". Apply that to the gay marriage issue as a whole, and you'd have to imagine he's right.
Which leaves the anti-gay-marriage camp and their historical legacy. The thought crossed my mind when I was reading about Texas state senator Wendy Davis's epic filibuster against anti-abortion legislation on Tuesday. It got me thinking about the longest filibuster of all time – in 1957 US Senator Strom Thurmond spoke consecutively for 24 hours and 18 minutes in an attempt to block the Civil Rights Act.
Looking back at this from our 2013 vantage point, it seems horrific and bizarre that someone would speak for an entire day in order to prevent the advancement of racial equality. Is this how we'll eventually feel about those who condemned the "redefinition of marriage" and compared gay relationships with bestiality?
