Poverty, education, health and safety. That is what you are talking about. Our focus was pretty narrow. We cannot do everything, but we did talk about things such as i will give you an example having 911 triage. By that i mean, if you get a 911 call where it appears the incident is involving an individual who is suffering from mental disability, in some cities, they will shift that call to a group of 911 receivers who are actually with special training to deal with and ask the right questions so that the right resources, to the extent that they exist because they dont and all cities, are been deployed to that situation. A lot of times what you have are people receiving calls who dont have adequate training who then deploy people who dont have adequate training to situations that could be completely avoided in a situation where there was training. One final point on this you take the police like the u. K. Where, yes, there are as many guns arent as many guns, but they have, the police have an overarching motto about preservation of life at all costs. When an officer is sent to a situation im not talking about in custody which is another issue if you have a person with a mental disability who is facing an officer with a weapon, most of the officers there are trained to simply slow the situation down. You get sandwiches, i will get coffee and we will await the person out. That is not what happens here in part because the officers are not trained properly and the people who dispatch them do not ask the right questions. Prof. Stone thank you, professor meares. [applause] prof. Meares thank you. It was fun. Quick our guest on newsmakers is lily garcia. Representing the nations largest teachers union, she talks about education issues. Watch the interview tomorrow at 10 00 a. M. And 6 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Quick sunday night, tyler able, talks of drew pearson about the second volume of mr. Pearsons diaries, which give an insiders take on washington dc from 19601969. It was just remarkable, all the things that he did. Sometimes he would criticize himself in the diary. You would come across different places where he said i think that column was too strong, i should not have said it quite that way. It is going to get mad at me for the way i wrote that column, but it needs to be told. And glad i wrote it. Quick sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on q a. Next, the history of american law concerning sex and the Supreme Courts interpretation of marriage and constitutional rights. From the chicago humanities festival, this is an hour. Jeff and i have known each other for a number of years and i have always admired and respected him for his sometimes iconoclastic legal positions regarding seemingly embedded, nonnegotiable cultural institutions. One has only to reflect back on the social, religious and legal of this country. That history which everyone in this room has been witness to. To be astonished at how rapidly our views have changed toward samesex marriage. It took real courage to address an injustice that generated as much heat and animus as this did. Please help me welcome a man who stood up to argue and defend what our nations highest court is now recognized as a constitutional right, professor jeffrey stone. [applause] professor stone thank you. Im delighted to be here. My talk derives from a book that i am currently finishing titled sexing the constitution. The book addresses such issues as contraception, homosexuality, abortion. I decided to focus specifically this afternoon on samesex marriage. An issue that cut to the heart of the meeting meaning of equal citizenship. In august 1982 a Police Officer went to the home of Michael Hardwick to serve an arrest warrant for public drinking. Upon entering the home, the officer observed hardwick and another man engaged in oral sex. The officer placed both men under arrest for the crime of sodomy. They decide in 1986 that the Supreme Court held the homosexual sodomy law was not unconstitutional. Noting the constitution says nothing about a right to commit sodomy and that prescriptions against homosexuality have ancient roots, just as to claim the constitution protects a right to engage in such conduct is at best facetious. In a concurring opinion, chief Justice Warren burger added the condemnation of homosexual conduct is rooted in judeochristian moral and ethical standards and that the hold the act of the sexual sodomy that was protected by the constitution will be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching. Justice Harry Blackmun dissented. Although conceding the traditional judeochristian values, for hundreds if not thousands of years, blackmun insisted that that could not provide adequate justification for the law. That certain religious groups condemned the behavior gives the state no license to impose their judgment on the entire citizenry. To the contrary, it depends on whether the state can advance some justification for its law beyond its conformity to religious doctrine. Finding no such justification, he concluded that the statute could not be reconciled with the United States constitution. That however was a dissenting opinion. The courts invocation of moral and religious prescriptions against homosexuality played a central role under the reasoning in bowers. Its useful to have some understanding of that history. Lets take a look at the ancient roots that Justice White invoked. The prechristian world generally thought of sex as a positive art of human nature. It did not see sex as bound up with questions of sin or religion. The ancient greeks focus not on sexual sins but on whether an individuals conduct was actually harmful to others. This extended to homosexuality. It was that adult men often had samesex relationships with adolescent boys. This may seem strange to us but greek poetry and literature celebrated sexual relationships and identified them with love, integrity, and courage. Although roman sexual life was different from that of the greeks, the romans celebrated sexual pleasure and neither roman religion or law condemned samesex sex. The emergence of christianity produced a profound change in the understandings of sex. I the end of the fifth century christianity had come to condemned homosexual desire as an evil temptation that must be suppressed. This shift occurred over the course of several centuries but it was a gustin who crystallize the early christian understanding of sex. In a critical leap he linked sexual desire to the fall of man. Adams transgression he argued had not been one of disobedience, but one of sex. He maintained that every sexual desire is born out of evil. That every child born out of evil is born in sin. That it is to sex that man has passed on the original sin from one generation to the next. Augustine concluded that mans only hope for redemption lay in repudiating the sexual impulse and with it the burden of sin and shame inherited from adam. Augustine vision ultimately shape the future, not only of christianity but of western culture and law. During the next 1000 years, Christmas Christian dogma changed political and legal authority. The sin of sodomy was seen as uniquely dire. As the biblical story todd, for taught, for this particular sin god will punish not only the sinners also those who fail themselves to prevent the sin. It was still unclear precisely what can constitute sodomy. First Thomas Aquinas who drew a sharp distinction between unnatural acts. Before long, time us was thinking on this point. At the same time, samesex sex became for the first time to be declared not only a sin but also a crime. The church for the first time conscripted the secular law twixt then its prohibition on samesex sex not only to those who share the faith but to those, everyone regardless of religious beliefs. Criminal statutes against samesex sex were enacted throughout europe and because of the nature of this crime these laws called for homosexuals to be castrated, dismembered, burned at the stake, drowned, stoned and decapitated or buried alive. In short, homosexuals for the first time became the object of a Systematic Campaign of extermination. The reformation brought about significant changes in the protestant attitude towards sex. Those did not extend to homosexuality. Protestant reformers reaffirmed no Uncertain Terms the traditional condemnation of homosexuality as a detestable sin. In the american colonies, it would be punished with death without mercy. By the time the American Revolution the colonies under the influence of the enlightenment had stop using the criminal law to prosecute most forms of consensual sex. Except for the crime of sodomy which remained a capital offense. Sodomy remained a serious felony in every state of the nation for the next 200 years. Throughout all of this history throughout all of this history, it was generally assumed that individuals who chose to engage in samesex sex were no different from other individuals who engaged in criminal or sinful behavior. It was simply a choice. That assumption began to be questioned for the first time in the late 19th century. For the first time persons drawn to samesex sex began to be seen as individuals with a distinctive psychological identity. The concept of the homosexual first came into being. Leading studies of homosexuality in the late 19 century said that the personshology, afflicted with this pathology were strange freaks of nature. Inclination was congenital or acquired. Whether it was curable or incurable. Or activelycepted resisted and suppressed . Physicians proposed a broad range of remedies for homosexuality including hypnosis psychoanalysis sex with ridingutes bicycle rectal massage burning the next and castration. Many doctors recommended the sterilization of homosexuality in order to prevent the condition from being passed on from one generation to the next. 1930s several states have enacted compulsory sterilization laws aimed at homosexuals. The image of the homosexual took on the increasingly sinister cast. It recasts the dominant image of homosexuals as dangerous naturallys who were inclined to commit the most unspeakable crimes. Demonized not only as perverts but as child westerners. They became the new enemy of the people. Increasedr sodomy dramatically in the 1930s. Americaorld war ii attempted to prevent homosexuals from joining the military. With the advent of the cold war, things got even worse. Fearful of domestic subversion, americans turned with a. Engeance against homosexuals the conflation of communists and queers went on. Said, thegressman russians are strong believers in homosexuality. Warneding journalists that communists are now converting american youths to homosexuality in order to defeat us from within. Scare washe lavender governmentear agencies begin using lie detectors. The fbi can lists of homosexuals. President eisenhower issued an executive order declaring sexual perversion a serious security risk. In light of the intensity of the antihomosexual fever that gripped the nation, gays and lesbians found themselves increasingly isolated. A society in which the dominant religion excoriated homosexuality, the law granted it as a vicious crime and the medical profession diagnosed homosexuals as diseased, the vast majority of individuals did their best to hide this secret shame. The terrible fear of discovery cap these lives invisible. Even civil Rights Groups turned their backs on gays and lesbians. 1957 the National Board of the American Civil Liberties union declared it is not within the province of the aclu to question the validity of laws aimed at the suppression or elimination of homosexuals. 1960s, a handful of courageous gay men and lesbians began calling openly for the acceptance of homosexuals as people. 1969 crow whitman wrote what he called the gay manifesto. Our first job is to clear our own heads of the garbage that is important to them. Liberation for gay people is defining for ourselves as who we are. This was the first time that anybody had used the term come out in this matter. For those who sought equal rights for gays and lesbians coming out was a radical and daring act that would affect every aspect of their lives. As late as 1969 only a few members of the growing gay rights organizations have publicly identified themselves the next decade so gradual but halting progress on gay rights. 1972 a lesbian was allowed to retain custody of her children in a contested divorce for the first time in american history. In 1973 American Psychiatric association declared for the first time that homosexuality was not a mental illness. Decade ad of the number of states have repealed their laws making consensual sodomy a crime. Illinois was the first one to do this. These developments sparked a sharp backlash. The most explosive response arose out of it are opposed to gay rights ordinance in dade county florida. In 1977 the county commission passed an ordinance prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Local religious groups were outraged and demanded immediate repeal of the ordinance local baptists charged that the law violated gods biblical commandments. Leaders of the christian right including Jerry Falwell came to miami to campaign in favor of repeal. The special referendum county voters repealed it by an overwhelming margin. This generated momentum for a new antigay movement. Bumper stickers appeared with such messages as kill a queer for christ, and within two years many of the laws and that had been enacted were also repealed. The christian right charged during this campaign that it promoted Child Molesting and gay recruiting. The antigayrights campaign saw this fight as a religious battle for the soul of america. Soon thereafter aids struck the Gay Community. The disease became associated with homosexuality and the christian right deemed it gods punishment. The Reagan Administration had no interest in devoting government time or money to an illness that was thought threaten only gay men. Rather than invest federal funds, the white house instructed the centers for Disease Control to look pretty but do as little as you can. Aids ravaged the homosexual community. Killing more than a quarter of a million gay men. Aidscally the heart of brought homosexuality into the light. As thousands of gay men died horrible deaths, people had to take notice. Often but not always with sympathy. Gradually one person a time the previously closeted lives of homosexuals became visible. First out of necessity and then later through candor and selfrespect. Gay invisibility was suddenly melting away. The gay and lesbian march on washington in 1993 brought hundreds of thousands of individuals pass the white house. I know because i was there. There is the pin that i wore that day. I wasnt in washington to participate in the march. I was there for a reunion of justice brennans law clerks. It happened to be on the same day as the march. Once there i did participate. I will tell you something i only once publicly revealed. After i got to the Supreme Court the brennan clerks all gathered in the sprinkler chamber and i had a couple of these Pink Triangle buttons my pocket. Ire former wife nancy and decided we had to do something. While i kept guard she eight pinkpinned triangle button on the American Flag that having sex to the bench behind which the justices said when they hear the cases. Last time i checked it was still there. But dont tell anyone. In any event to return to my years later, ellen degeneres, star of the popular tv show ellen, came out as a lesbian. Thatrs tuned in to reveal she was a lesbian. The response of the christian right was fierce. Donald wildman railed that homosexuality was a sin that was repulsive to christians. The struggle was a matter of life and death. The battle lines have been clearly drawn. As we saw earlier, in his First Encounter with homosexuality, the Supreme Court held in bowers versus hardwick that a state could make homosexual conduct a criminal offense. Of religioustory condemnation, any suggestion that the constitution could be interpreted to protect this behavior was best facetious. Foray intosecond this arena was romer versus evans in 1996. Several cities have enacted ordinances protecting protecting gays from discrimination. In colorado after denver enacted in antidiscrimination ordinance they amended the statewide constitution. Amendment to provided that neither the state of colorado nor any of its subdivisions could legally enact any law that protected homosexuals from discrimination. Lawyers filed suit saying that amendment two, violated the u. S. Constitution. Bowers, it seemed obvious that the Supreme Court would reject the challenge. But in a stunning 63 decision the court held the amendment unconstitutional. Justice Anthony Kennedy surprisingly was the author of the courts opinion. Kennedy via the problem with amendment to that imposed a special disability only upon homosexuals. This was so because under amendment to every group in colorado was free to try to persuade the city council was the university of the state legislature to enact laws protecting them against discrimination. Except homosexuals. 2 gaye of amendment to people would have to amend the constitution. In mind, Justice Kennedy turned to the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. Provides that no state shall deny to any person the equal protection of the laws. Under that guarantee, the law treats some people differently from others it ordinarily will satisfy the court action clause as long as it airs a rational relationship to some legitimate purpose. Almost every law passes that highly deferential standard, Justice Kennedy said that amendment to did not. A law declaring that it shall be more difficult for one group of citizens and for all others to seek aid from government was virtually unprecedented in american history. Towas therefore impossible avoid the inference that the results not was the of any rational effort but of animosity toward gay people. Because of their desire to harm an unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate government interest, he found that the amendment violated the u. S. Constitution. Bytice Antonin Scalia joined chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice Thomas took a different view. Scalia said it was not a manifestation of the desire to harm. It was a rational and perfectly attempt by people in colorado to preserve traditional sexual mores he castigated Justice Kennedy is utterly disingenuous and clearly inconsistent with bowers. The Supreme Courts third decision was lawrence versus texas. It was pretty much a rerun of bowers. Entered theers residence and saw two men engaging in sex. They were arrested and convicted of a texas statute making it a crime for anyone to engage in deviant sexual intercourse. 1982 bowers had been used to justify discrimination. Adoption,tion, employment, and other proceedings. Criminal, thats a gay person is no different from a robber or a thief. But much had changed. Only had aids devastated the Gay Community but 60 of that gay now thought sex should no longer be deemed a criminal offense. The six to three decision and heldrruled bowers the texas law unconstitutional. Justice kennedy again delivered the opinion. Kennedy maintained that the courts reasoning in bowers had been distorted by the courts failure to appreciate the extent of the liberty at stake. Although conceding that the framers had not expressly guaranteed the right to engage in gay sex, kennedy explained that the framers had intentionally left some constitutional guarantees openended. They knew that later generations would see that laws once the proper could serve only to oppress and to be unfair. That was the situation in lawrence. There was no constitutionally legitimate justification for making gay sex crime. Justice scalia dissented. Scilly accused the court of signing on to what he called the homosexual agenda. He fumed that the court had no business in validating legislation that had been approved by the people of texas. Religious conservatives were livid. Pat robertson denounced the court for rending the fourth moral fabric of the nation. When it came time for Justice Kennedy to announce the judgment he read a brief statement explaining the result from the bench. The spring Court Chamber was packed. At the end he said bowers was it was decidedn and is not correct today. Bowers is overruled. It was a remarkable moment. Overwhelmed by what was happening, many of the gay and lesbian advocates openly solved. For the gay and Lesbian Community it was occasion for dancing in the streets. Erected in cities across the nation. Lawrence meant that never again be dismissedghts as facetious. Never again would they have to wonder whether equal justice under law included them. The constitution was now their constitution to. A group of veterans who been expelled from military service proudly saluted as the rainbow flag was lowered and an American Flag was raised in its place. History theamerican notion that a man could marry another man. Seemed utterly absurd. In 1990 however four years after bowers three gay couples in hawaii applied for marriage audaciously they then filed suit in state court claiming that the states refusal to allow samesex marriage violated the hawaii constitution. Surprise the hawaii court ruled in 1993 that the states law restricting marriage to a man and a woman might violate the constitution. Almost immediately states across the nation rushed to amend their state constitution to define marriage as opposite sex. The goal was to it that prevent shouldwn state courts they ever emerge. These issues played at the National Level as well. Approaches,election armey referred to barney frank as barney fag. Congress passed the defense of suchage act to make persons ineligible for the federal benefits that are conferred on married couples. Hearings on that law were openly homophobic. Members of congress described gays and lesbians in sick and perverted and dangerous. With the president ial election president bill clinton signed the defense of marriage act. Samesex marriage was not legal in any state in the nation. Then years later massachusetts Supreme Court held that laws denying samesex couples the right to marry violated the massachusetts constitution. It was the first state in the nation to legalize samesex marriage. 13 additional states promptly amended their constitutions to make clear that they prohibited samesex marriage. Later the Supreme Courts of connecticut in california and iowa followed massachusetts. The push back again was furious. In california the christian right launched a vigorous and Successful Campaign to amend the state constitution to outlaw samesex marriage. Voters in iowa for it office three of the justices who had voted for gay marriage. Despite several seemingly landmark victories, the movement for samesex marriage headstall. Most efforts to legalize it had been overturned. This brings me to the Supreme Courts fourth decision. Windsor versus United States. In a bitterly divided 54 decision, the Supreme Court throughout the defense of marriage act. Lawrence,r and justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the opinion. He was joined by ginsburg, so the mayor, and kagan. Kennedy explained that the issue presented was not whether states could constitutionally the obligated to recognize samesex marriage. It was whether the federal government could constitutionally discriminate against couples who had been legally married in their states. Because those individuals happen to be of the same sex. The conferred upon them a dignity and status of immense import. By placing legally married gay couples in the position of being secondtier marriages the law demeans the couples and humiliated tens of thousands of children who than being raised by samesex couples. In a furious dissenting opinion, Justice Scalia characterize the courts is nothing short of remarkable. Scilly angrily predicted that windsor would lead to a constitutional right to gay marriage. Concerned,his court no one should be fooled. It is just a matter of waiting. It is striking how far the court had moved in 27 years from bowers to windsor. This was due to several factors one of which was not an overall move the court in a liberal direction. Issues, theange of had moved if anything notably more conservative than the court had been in the time of bowers. What had changed was the Public Awareness of gay and lesbian people. The public and legal understanding of both the morality and wisdom of laws that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Public opinion on those issues has shifted dramatically between bowers and windsor. Botheredo one had even to take a poll on the issue of samesex marriage. The idea was so ludicrous. In 1996 only 23 of americans thought that samesex marriage should be legal. I 2013 54 of americans share that view. This shift was due to many factors. The profound change in the visibility of gays and lesbians. Affected notmation only everyday citizens but president and lawmakers and judges. With these changes the traditional judicial aserstanding of concepts they applied to homosexuals was called into question. It is important to know that those changes did not in themselves dictate any particular change in constitutional doctrine. Bowers and windsor were both 54 decisions. Only one vote changed over the course of those 27 years. Had robert bork been confirmed to the Supreme Court the outcome of windsor would have been fivefor the other way. My point is that the divergent outcome was shaped by at least two critical factors. The general public understanding of homosexuality and the particular interpretive approaches and values of individual justices who happen to be on the Supreme Court at the specific moment when the issue arose. Windsor therefter was a virtual avalanche of Lower Court Decisions invalidating state laws denying samesex couples the right to marry. The other show was indeed about to fall. In obergefell, in another 54 decision. The Supreme Court held that states could not deny persons of the same sex the right to marry. The opinion was once again written by Justice Kennedy. He called it the transcendent importance of the right to marry. The last two people to find a life that could not be found alone. It is essential to our most profound hopes and aspirations. That marriageding should traditionally been understood as between a man and woman he declared that it was both appropriate and inevitable in a free society that new defenses of freedom become apparent. Noting that the court had long held the fundamental personal choices can be protected by the constitution even if they are not explicitly predicted. The court had long recognized marriage he concluded that although the limitation of marriage to opposite sex couples may have long seemed natural and with its inconsistency the central meaning of the fundamental right to marry was productively. Chief Justice Roberts opposed this. The majoritys decision he said was an act of will not judgment. The right it announces has no basis of our constitution. Offeredscalia and alito similar scathing opinions. Recall that a naked judicial claim with super legislative power fundamentally at odds with our system of government. Justice thomas said that the decision threatens the religious liberty that our nation has long sought to protect. Justice alito called it deep corruption of constitutional litigation. So who is right . The mere fact that five is more than four does not necessarily imply it is correct even though it makes it law. So who is right . The fury expressed by the is completely unwarranted. Although there are reasonable grounds to disagree, there is nothing about the decision that merits the screeching charges of judicial usurpation hurled by the four dissenters. Those very same justices have embraced highly controversial interpretations of the constitution in awarding the 2000 president ial election to george w. Bush. Halting affirmativeaction programs. Holding gun control regulations unconstitutional. Holding laws regulating Campaign Expenditures as unconstitutional there are in fact reasonable grounds on which to disagree with the court. Law, justicethe kennedy relied on the argument that marriage is a fundamental right and the government cannot constitutionally limit the right to marry. The very notion that the constitution protects unenumerated rights theyre not mentioned in the constitution has always been a highly controversial concept. The constitution expressly protects freedom of speech and a central puzzle has always been whether it implicitly protects other rights that have not been expressly spelled out in the text. Historically the court has recognized such rights exist. Including the right not to be sterilized, the right to use contraception, the right to privacy, the right to vote, the right to decide whether to bear a child. The right to travel, and so on. The recognition of such unenumerated rights is always tricky business. Gives the justices essentially enormous authority to override the democratic process by imposing their own particular values about what they seem to be fundamental rights. As the dissenters argued, one constraint that has sometimes that the courtis should recognize and apply for the middle right only if the claimed right is one that has been deeply rooted in our nations history. Marriage course is such a right. Argued, how wers think about that is complicated. What is deeply rooted in our nations history is marriage between two persons of the opposite sex. Not samesex marriage. In obir view the court was creating an entirely new right out of whole cloth. Beyond the legitimate authority of the Supreme Court. Although this is a reasonable argument, is not compelled by the actual practice of the court which over time has not limited itself to finding fundamental rights in this matter. The point is certainly arguable dissenters objectives is far from crazy or irresponsible. My own view is that the court made the wrong argument. They should have decided the case not on the grounds that marriage is a fun middle right, but on the grounds that discrimination against gays and lesbians violates equal protection clause. I think it is a stronger argument legally and less open to the challenge that i stayed in a moment ago. The Supreme Court generally holds that laws are consistent with the equal protection clause as long as they meet a rational objective. That rely on suspect criteria are especially problematic. They are unconstitutional unless they can survive a highly strong standard of justification. Discrimination against African Americans is the paradigm for this kind of analysis. Whether the group has experienced a long history of invidious discrimination. Whether the defining characteristic of the group is essentially immutable unchangeable. Whether the group can effectively protect itself through the portal process. Those who challenge the constitutionality of laws that discriminate against gays and lesbians maintain that such discrimination satisfies these criteria. Such laws should be understood as presumptively unconstitutional for equal protection reasons. Those who defend the constitutionality of these laws maintain that homosexuality is a is no different than a history of discrimination against arsonists robbers are murderers. Laws that discriminate against homosexuals are completely different from laws that discriminate against African Americans or women or hispanics are japaneseamericans, all of which the court has held a constitutionally suspect. Underview this rationale the equal protection clause would been a much better basis for the courts decision that its reliance on marriage is a fundamental right. Resolve all discrimination against gays and lesbians not only the issue of marriage. Gays and lesbians have clearly suffered a long history of invidious discrimination. Sexual orientation is not a matter of choice. Gays and lesbians consistently have had their interests dismissed or overridden in the clinical process. Laws that discriminate against contextals in any should properly be deemed constitutionally suspect in the sense that they are highly motivated bymatter prejudice. This is the deepest interest reason for invalidating all laws that discriminate against gay people. I would like to close with one final observation. History, theican particular understanding of issues such ased sexual expression and abortion and homosexuality. Duehe last halfcentury largely to the Supreme Court of the United States those religious values have been pushed aside and individuals have increasingly been free to act on their own personal religious beliefs. Byher than be dictated to the religious police and others. This is a great achievement in a society dedicated to the separation of church and state. It does leave us with an interesting challenge. Alsohe constitution guarantees your right to practice your religion. With the demise in these respects of the religious state, those who hold traditional christian values find themselves on the defensive. No longer able to dictate to others, they now demand that they at least be permitted to act in accordance with their own religious beliefs. Hobby lobby demands the right not to provide contraceptives. Kim davis demands the right not to sanction samesex marriages. Catholic priests demand the right not to marry samesex couples. Dont want toers participate in samesex weddings. These are not easy questions. For one who values both the separation of church and state and the freedom of religion. Issues that the court and society will continue to wrestle with as we go forward. Perhaps the most astonishing backlash thatthe was so anticipated has in fact been so tepid. That may change over time but i think not. This is not abortion. Those who oppose abortion sincerely believe that it is the murder of a child. If one believes that abortion is the murder of children is easy to understand why you do not give up the fight. I homosexuality the reality is that for most people they can live with it. ,hey didnt think they could but they can. The response with a few odd exceptions has been tepid. Even the states where one would have expected a vociferous response. We can bask in the glory that our nation has taken another important step in protecting Human Dignity and citizenship and equality. This is a step that we can. Enuinely celebrate together to gain similar celebrations in the future we constantly have to challenge the accepted wisdom. No one in this room with imagined 25 years ago that the Supreme Court of the United States would hold that gays and lesbians have a right to get married. It was first with applicable. Virtually unthinkable. We hope believes that our willren and their children come to regard as naive or foolish or bigoted. We dont understand that at the moment. As we strive to fulfill the obligations of citizenship, we have to have the courage and openmindedness and integrity to question the conventional wisdom thank you. [applause] [applause]