For all the attention focused on the Supreme Court's review of gay marriage this week, the ruling is not going to provoke one of those culture-shifting moments in America, like the decisions that ended school segregation or established that even offensive speech like flag-burning is a protected right.
Not that equal marriage rights as an issue is any less pressing. But the prow of this ship has passed: Gay marriage is here, with or without high judicial blessing. The most that could be done by Antonin Scalia (or whoever turns out to be the most reluctant jurist) is to drag out its widespread acceptance.
You could attribute it to the Portman Effect.
Portman, that is, as in Rob Portman, the conservative U.S. senator from Ohio, who earlier this month became the latest high-profile Republican to announce his support for gay marriage. By casting his lot with Dick Cheney, Laura Bush and Colin Powell, Portman is still near the head of what's sure to be a rush of Republicans away from the party's long-standing insistence that marriage is only for a man and a woman.
And what led Portman to his decision? The same thing that propels the gay marriage movement itself: love.
The senator's son Will, a Yale junior, is gay. Will came out to his parents two years ago. Have you noticed how many people rethink their views on gay rights when they recognize that somebody they love is gay or lesbian? It's the Portman Effect.
"I have come to believe that if two people are prepared to make a lifetime commitment to love and care for each other in good times and in bad, the government shouldn't deny them the opportunity to get married," Portman wrote in a newspaper column announcing his stance.
Viewed in that light, support for gay marriage is a fundamentally conservative position, one that values individual rights over government regulation. Who among us could blame Rob Portman for insisting that America deliver on the promise that his son have the same rights as any other kid?
Lest anyone doubt his bona fides on the political right, he added what for conservatives could be the scriptural text for his message: "Ronald Reagan said all great change in America begins at the dinner table, and that's been the case in my family."
So it was for Dick Cheney, who was on the 2004 Republican ticket that used the fear of gay marriage to rally voters in 11 states. He kept quiet then out of political expedience, clearly, but now — after his daughter Mary has married her longtime partner and given him two grandchildren — Cheney has spoken out.
It's not only family ties that inspire this illumination. Assemblywoman Janet Duprey, a North Country Republican, said that what most influenced her to switch to voting for gay marriage legislation was constituents whose children are lesbian and gay. Bill O'Reilly, the Fox News host, seemingly found new acceptance of the idea after being turned off by an opposition that, he said, "hasn't been able to do anything but thump the Bible."
Even Rush Limbaugh conceded this week that gay marriage is "inevitable," though he blamed that on a failure of opponents to argue the case properly — as though clever rhetoric could change the sweep of history.
No wonder Time magazine's cover this week proclaims, "Gay marriage already won," leading to an article exploring how the shift in attitudes nationally came about (and seemingly so quickly).
Not that this still isn't controversial. The most dependable poll I found suggests that 44 percent of Americans still oppose legalizing same-sex marriage. But opposition melts among young Americans, who support equal marriage rights by a margin of about 4 to 1. Young people are almost always more tolerant than their elders.
What is left is for the direction society is already taking to be embraced by the nation's smallest legislature, the nine-member Supreme Court. Of course, the court is not as accountable to citizens as the executive or legislative branches — its members are appointed, not elected, and they can serve for life. Some justices are joyfully haughty when looking public opinion in the eye.
But the court's authority is imperiled when respect for its rulings is eroded. And to command that respect from the American people, the court needs to assess and then heed the direction citizens are headed.
Not that it doesn't sometimes step gingerly ahead of society's prejudices. There remained plenty of opposition to integration when the court ordered schools desegregated in 1954, and the abortion decision in Roe vs. Wade in 1973 came when the procedure was still illegal in most states (but not New York).
But the inevitably rising sentiment of Americans cannot be denied. In the pursuit of happiness, a right we were promised at the nation's founding, most of us simply want to love and be loved. The people and the institutions they have established cannot turn that aside.