New Jersey "win" really a "loss?"

Moments ago, the Supreme Court of New Jersey declared that gay couples are entitled to the same protections that heterosexual couples receive through marriage. They've given lawmakers 180 days to decide whether to fully extend marriage to gay couples, or whether to create a civil union system that offers identical protections.

This ruling comes after 2 years of nearly non-stop losses for proponents of gay marriage, both in the Courts and at the hands of the voters, and there's no question that it's a big "win" for the movement in the near term. However, the results could turn out to be anything but positive for supporters of gay marriage.

For the last few years, people like John McCain have been arguing that, while they are opposed to gay marriage in principle, they weren't comfortable amending the Constitution to ban gay marriage because it wasn't necessary to do so. The reasoning was that the Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996, was Constitutional and would prevent gay marriages from spreading across the country by virtue of the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution if one state (such as New Jersey, now) were to authorize it.

Of course, there are many (such as myself) who think that a court challenge to DOMA would result in its being declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. If this were to happen, it would outrage opponents of gay marriage, and would make McCain's argument completely moot. This is, in my mind, the only sequence of events that could lead to the passage of an Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment.

Rather than fighting this issue in the Courts, I think the movement needs to work hard to change people's opinions on the issue. Convince the public (and the legislators) that gay marriage (or, preferably, civil unions - which are less offensive to opponents and which can be structured to provide the same protections) is not going to bring down the republic, and all of a sudden you can start to get laws passed allowing civil unions. Failure to secure the support of the majority beforehand, however, will backfire. The courts are an unpredictable and unstable means of fighting political battles - and the consequences of winning in the courts are not always forseeable.