DN Editorial: DRED AND CHANGE

A DRAMATIC evolution has occurred on the issue of gay marriage, both at the Supreme Court and among the public. Some opponents of the court's decision last week not to uphold state bans on gay marriage are calling it a disaster, even comparing it to the pro-slavery Dred Scott decision of 1857.

In fact, it is the opposite. Gay marriage means more freedom for individuals and less intrusion of government into the home. As a nation, we are simply applying our fundamental American principles of liberty to the present day.

We should be skeptical and cautious of judicial activism, but the Dred Scott decision - which held that a slave was property and not an American with rights - is an example of the court trying to artificially freeze the social and moral development of the nation. Bans on gay marriage make the same mistake.

This is precisely what equal protection was intended for. The slavery question could not be left up to individual states. The need to protect and defend the freedoms of the minority trumped the right of states that were trying to withhold them. As our nation developed, applying more broadly the belief that all men are created equal was the only way for successive generations to remain true to our founding principles.

Activists claim credit for forcing gay marriage through over the monumental opposition of conservatives, but that's not what happened. What happened was an unprecedented shift in public opinion; every poll indicates a majority of Americans now support gay marriage _ and that includes 56 percent of Republicans under age 45, with even higher support among Republicans under 30. President Obama opposed gay marriage until 2012, when it became clear he was being left behind.

Americans suddenly found themselves personally knowing gay friends, family members and co-workers, and they were not scary, they were simply normal people living their lives. This was a gentle revolution brought about by visible gay assimilation into society, rather than radicals pushing the nation in a direction it did not want to go.

To put this in context, majority approval of interracial marriage wasn't achieved until after 1995; it's now at almost 90 percent. But it was the duty of the Supreme Court, as recently as 1967, to strike down interracial-marriage bans in certain states.

Opponents of gay marriage, like past opponents of interracial marriage, must realize the fight for the public's hearts and minds has been lost. Continuing a quixotic battle against the tides of freedom and history will only further marginalize conservatives and surrender the vital moral high ground of defending individual liberty.

An important caveat: It is not the place of government to punish those who do not support gay marriage.

By refusing to uphold bans on gay marriage - and by likely issuing a future broad ruling on the right of gay couples to marry - the Supreme Court is doing exactly the vital job our founders intended it to; protecting individual liberties from those who would use state's rights or religion as an excuse for unequal treatment under the law. Nothing is more right, or more American.