I think they're wasting their breath. I discern no magnanimity in the progressives at all. Theirs is a spirit devoid of charity, which gloats and glowers above those it brings down. I fully expect in the short term for those of us currently in the majority to be treated as pariahs, with the intent of intimidating us into saying what they demand we say.
I refuse to submit. As I wrote long ago, in a protest poem from a time best forgot,
my nose is blueAnd I don't think it's quite as bleak as it feels right now.
I cannot swallow
the rancid Gainesburgers
Yes, they will vilify us, as they go on to re-create society in their image; however, if marriage traditionalists fear being tarred as bigots a la the segregationists of yore, I think they might be mistaken. Think not of the unlamented segregationists, but of those who protested abortion on demand. These Court cases are like Roe v. Wade in that regard. Roe didn't make abortion legal -- that was already coming to pass in several jurisdictions. What Roe did was to trump all jurisdictions' powers at once. The Court in that case short-circuited the democratic process and thereby created more turmoil than they ever avoided.
Those who opposed Roe -- either as a moral outrage or as wrongly decided -- were indeed vilified, but they have persevered. And they are winning. Each new generation is more pro-life than preceding ones. And in return, the proponents of unlimited abortion have overplayed their hand. They have shown that they don't really care about scared young women or poor women or women with risky medical conditions -- all they care about is dead babies. They refuse to be reasonable about anything -- facility inspections, limits on late-term abortions, parental notification, making sure women know their options -- all they care about is the public and private good of another dead baby.
So they will be with marriage. For in the end, they don't really care about gay people living fulfilling lives in stable relationships. They just care about destroying marriage as we know it between ordinary men and women.
If Roe were overturned tomorrow, it wouldn't end abortion in America. Abortion is a problem with deep roots. Hippocrates forbade it in his Oath, which only means that it was present in his society, too. The opponents of Roe would disagree among themselves about how to handle the issue once Roe is gone -- but that's what democracy's about. They're not like the extremists on the other side, who are all very sure that they're right and everybody else is evil.
And so it is with these cases decided today. Rolling them back won't end the arguments about sexuality and relationships. Nor will it lead to persecution of gay people. Those of us who oppose the erosion of traditional marriage are not the extremists here. And if it takes us thirty or forty years to repair the damage being done in this generation, all the while being vilified by the radicals, well so be it.
We are not the extremists here.