There's a lot of people who realize that being anti-marriage-equality today is similar to being pro-slavery shortly after the Civil War when there was nowhere near 100% recognition of how abhorrent slavery is/was, though not in severity (i.e. both are morally wrong, but the magnitude of slavery is much, much greater...if pro-equality advocates were more intellectually honest, they'd equate it with prohibitions on interracial marriage which, though a vestige of slavery, is more of an exact corollary).

But it's pretty clear to those of us who have no dog in this fight that the anti-equality folks are on the wrong side of history. In 50 years, not allowing gays to marry will be more or less equivalent to the prohibitions against interracial marriage that once existed and are now, almost universally, recognized as being bigoted.

Your argument is that no one was ever in support of slavery, or in support of denying women the right to vote?

That is a bit ridiculous, you realize that, correct?

No, that is not what I was saying at all.

Go to any of the thousands of rural communities in the United States, especially in the midwest, and you will find many people who will strongly stand by their opinion that gay marriage should not be legal.

Just because you believe that gay rights are as fundamental as women's suffrage does not mean that, as a political issue, gay rights are as decided nationwide as women's suffrage.

Women's suffrage, many, many years ago, would have been in the same boat that gay rights are now. Go back many years before that, and slavery would be similarly as controversial. Do you not understand that?

Saying that gay rights aren't as fundamental of an issue because it's not as cut and dry today as women's suffrage and slavery are today is patently ridiculous. Those issues have had decades to pass from controversial to relatively settled to settled.

Age of an issue does not dictate importance.

> Saying that gay rights aren't as fundamental of an issue because it's not as cut and dry today as women's suffrage and slavery are today is patently ridiculous.

That's really not what I wrote at all, though.

"Just because you believe that gay rights are as fundamental as women's suffrage does not mean that, as a political issue, gay rights are as decided nationwide as women's suffrage."

That's exactly what that part of your sentence says, unless I am reading this incorrectly.

I think you're reading it incorrectly. You're interpreting it backwards from what I intended.

X = "you believe that gay rights are as fundamental as women's suffrage"

Y = "gay rights are as decided nationwide as women's suffrage"

All I wrote is that X does not imply Y. You seen to be interpreting it, though, as (not Y) implies (not X), the contrapositive of which is X does imply Y, which is basically the opposite of what I meant.

It absolutely does have the same status for those who are on the right side of the argument (the one that will certainly be vindicated by history). The people who are in the right don't have to wait until the slow people catch up, in order to be right.

My comment was in regard to the present-day political status of the issue. With that in mind...

> for those who are on the right side of the argument

In the US, women's suffrage and slavery do not ever need to be qualified by phrases like this. So really, the very way in which you had to phrase that sentence invalidates the point you're trying to make.

> (the one that will certainly be vindicated by history)

The most likely future political status of the issue is not the same as the present-day political status.

> The people who are in the right don't have to wait until the slow people catch up, in order to be right.

You do have to wait in order for it to be law. That's democracy.