WILL "I DO"S END THE SSM DEBATE?: From the Christian Science Monitor

...For gays and lesbians across Massachusetts, this dawning of official state recognition of their relationships has produced a week of sheer euphoria. Amid the streamers and confetti, the flowers and well-wishers, it is almost possible to overlook the fact that the status of gay marriage in the state will not be fully settled until voters cast ballots in 2006. It also remains to be seen whether the Massachusetts law will have the domino effect gay-rights advocates hope it will, or whether it will harden resistance of opponents and stir a major backlash.

If US history is any guide, either scenario is possible. History shows that big legal milestones in social movements--from voting rights to interracial marriage to school desegregation to women's rights--often engender resistance, sometimes violent resistance, when they are first enacted. But over time, they do tend to shift the status quo in favor of the minority group, and so, many social historians predict that gay marriage is here to stay.

Legalization of same-sex marriage is a defining moment, and regarded as such by the gay community. But legal experts and activists are thinking beyond the present euphoria to possible ramifications.

Looking back at social movements such as feminism and civil rights, whose progress has been more like the tortoise than the hare, Cheryl Jacques, president of Human Rights Coalition, a gay rights advocacy group, emphasizes the need for time and patience.

"Fifty years after Brown [v. Board of Education], we are still grappling with equal treatment in its true meaning for African-Americans," she says. "Racism didn't go away just because the laws changed, and homophobia won't go away just because the laws change. But it's an important place to start."

Steven Mintz, a professor of history at the University of Houston, cites the legalization of interracial marriage in 1967 as another example of how once-controversial social issues can gain public acceptance.

"To most of my students, it is just inconceivable that there was ever a time when interracial marriages were forbidden," Professor Mintz says. "My suspicion is that in 25 years, gay marriage will be viewed as one of those fundamental turning points in much the same way." ...

Stephanie Coontz, a historian at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., views same-sex marriage as part of a dramatic redefinition of marriage over the past 30 years that affects both heterosexuals and homosexuals.

She calls this shift, which has taken place over the past 30 years, "only one symptom of a new openness of society to a whole set of untraditional ways of living your life and organizing your obligations to others."

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