“ All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. ”
This quote by 18th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer is one of my “favorite quotes” on Facebook. But with the recent flurry of news about the legal challenge to California’s Prop 8, I’ve been thinking about the quote in terms of gay marriage.
In that case, the “truth” is, of course, that marriage is a fundamental right, no matter the genders of the people pledging their lives to each other.
At this point, we’re squarely in the second stage of Schopenhauer’s quote; for years the possibility of gay marriage was ridiculed, and in recent years it has been violently opposed by a variety of religious groups and conservative individuals.
Now I don’t know what’s going to happen with the Prop 8 challenge (background: Prop 8 was a California ballot initiative which banned gay marriage; it passed, gay marriage advocates challenged the law (saying it was unconstitutional, last week a federal judge agreed and struck down the law and it is now being appealed to an appellate court). The consensus, and my sneaking suspicion, is that the case will end up at the Supreme Court, with Justice Anthony Kennedy casting the deciding vote in favor of gay marriage as a constitutional right. But there’s no way to know.
Still, as these legal proceedings unfold, I can’t help thinking that gay marriage - like the abolition of slavery and adoption of women’s voting rights - is headed for the third stage of Schopenhauer’s quote at an increasingly fast rate.
In 20 years, (or 30, or 40, or whatever), will any significant group of people really still oppose gay marriage? Will our children even believe how we could have denied the right to marriage simply based on sexual orientation? I don’t think so.
Until then, this silliness is just that: silliness.
