A civil rights landmark

CAROLE MIGDEN, the state Board of Equalization chair, likes to point to polling numbers that show 70 percent of Americans under 30 support same-sex marriage. In 10 years – 20 at the outside – this battle will be over, and the right-wing fundamentalists will have lost. When that happens, history will almost certainly look back at what's been happening in San Francisco this week as a civil rights landmark.

Mayor Gavin Newsom has been getting a lot of political credit for setting in motion a battle that will almost certainly wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court, and while he deserves applause for doing something San Francisco should have done years ago, he wasn't the only one involved. According to a Feb. 22 Los Angeles Times article, queer legal groups have been plotting the strategy for challenging the ban on gay marriage for some time now, and the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, along with the San Francisco City Attorney's Office, helped develop the plans that led to the first legally sanctioned same-sex marriages at City Hall.

And it's important to remember that tens of thousands of hard-working activists have been laying the political groundwork for this stage of the battle for at least 40 years. Like the U.S. Supreme Court decision throwing out antisodomy laws, the ultimate legal decision on gay marriage will be the result of political and cultural trends as much as specific legal arguments. Legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide won't be easy, but you get the feeling, from living in San Francisco over the past two weeks, that it's inevitable.

That's why it's so incredibly disappointing to see political leaders like Sen. Barbara Boxer, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and California attorney general Bill Lockyer publicly stating that marriage ought to be limited to opposite-sex partners. They are on the wrong side of history and will go down on record as hypocrites who refused to stand up and be counted in one of the most important civil rights movements of the times.

Meanwhile, where's the rest of California? The supervisors in Alameda, Marin, San Mateo, and all the other Bay Area counties ought to immediately follow S.F.'s lead and direct their county clerks to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. At the very least, they should join San Francisco's lawsuit and help push the issue forward.