A day or so after the Supreme Courts' momentous decision in the DOMA case, I spoke to a professor of mine who is a lesbian (her partner addressed our class). The move to allow, if not affirm, gay marriage as the law of the land felt like it had happened fast, I said.
"In less than a generation," she said. That's remarkably swift for this kind of cultural change.
In an atmosphere of heady optimism for gay marriage supporters, Nate Cohn of the New Republic sounded a cautionary note (you can find a link to his analysis in my commentary). To my mind, he makes some very good points.
While it's hard to predict the course of history, while one is living it, this is a crucial time for Americans, particularly American Christians.
Will increasing support for gay marriage among Catholics and mainline Protestants change minds among conservatives? Or are we looking at another "wedge" issue, like abortion, that will divide Americans for generations to come?
In this commentary I stick close to the numbers (though statistics are as diverse as the people doing the polling). In the ones to follow, you'll hear from some scholars and writers as they grapple with the question: what next?
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