Like Amos in the Bible, I'm neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet. But I don't think special predictive gifts are needed to see where the institution of marriage, at least as traditionally defined, is going. Conservatives are losing one state after another on the issue of gay marriage, and even the seeming triumphs like the California Proposition 8 are, I think, just a temporary hold on the inevitable.
Why inevitable? Because our governing bodies have left behind the concept that our historic Judeo/Christian principles should have a preference in matters of the law. It's nothing new, being written into the wording of the U.S. Consitution, and legal advocates for liberalization of social standards have been busy for many years, chipping away at the old order of things like prayers in schools, protection of the unborn and Ten Commandments on the courthouse lawn.
Under our current definitions of legal rights and privileges, it seems evident to me that the gay community has as much reason to demand access to the rights of marriage as blacks have gained in the rights of citizenship, and women have gained in the rights of employment.
Without an argument from biblical values, principles and prohibitions, the only thing standing in the way of gay marriage rights in every state is the willingness of the majority to change their traditions to accomodate a new view. To the modern mind, it seems one kind of civil rights is the same as another, without regard to any religious standards. Indeed, the imposition of religious standards on legal decisions has become so offensive to the courts that decisions have been thrown out because a judge admitted "praying" about his ruling.
As with other revisions of the social code, like dress codes in public, sexual relations before marriage or vulgar language in movies, the majority has shifted in their attitudes toward gays from the time when our nation was ruled by heterosexual, Protestant, white men.
And it's not that those men were not always truly biblical in their outlook, or they would have sought civil rights for blacks sooner, like William Wilberforce did in England. Instead, the powers-that-used-to-be followed their own interpretations of morality, biblical or otherwise. And with only a traditional sense of biblical morality, as opposed to an identification of law with biblical morality, as in the days of the "established church", the concept of legal "rights" will continue to trump traditional values.
The gays are as patient as other groups have been before them, and they know that many heterosexual people, whose parents would have recoiled at the thought of gay marriage, have already decided that "love is love, no matter who you are." It's just a matter of time before the crumbling wall of resistance comes down entirely.
In that day, those committed to the authority of the Bible will look as hopelessly outdated as the Amish and their buggies. Churches are now being attacked by opponents of the California vote to turn back gay marriage rights. What will happen when the whole country finally "drinks the Kool-Aid" on this issue? I don't know, but I'm not thinking the gay community will just "agree to disagree."
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