Saints Sergius & Bacchus Didn't Have Cellphones

Justice Samuel Alito said this today during the oral arguments in Hollingsworth v. Perry today:

Traditional marriage has been around for thousands of years. Same-sex marriage is very new. I think it was first adopted in the Netherlands in 2000. So there isn't a lot of data about its effect. And it may turn out to be a — a good thing; it may turn out not to be a good thing, as the supporters of Proposition 8 apparently believe. But you want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution which is newer than cellphones or the Internet? I mean, we — we are not — we do not have the ability to see the future.

 Um.... WRONG.

Marriage Equality was part of the LGBT rights movement long before cellphones.
This happened in 1971:

Less than two years after the Stonewall uprising, a group of men and women from the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) walked into the New York City Marriage License Bureau carrying coffee urns and boxes of cake to hold an engagement party for two male couples and to protest the "slander" of City Clerk Herman Katz, who had threatened legal action against same-sex "holy unions" being performed -- yes, already then, in 1971 -- by the Church of the Beloved Disciple, which had a largely gay congregation.

The best part? Someone filmed it!



Read the whole story and see the other videos at The Atlantic, "The Prehistory of Gay Marriage: Watch a 1971 Protest at NYC's Marriage License Bureau".

Same-sex unions have been around for thousands of years--long, long before the Internet.
This is hardly news. John Boswell's Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe was published 18 years ago. "Hell, between the 10th and 12th centuries, Christian churches had little problem performing same sex marriage" ceremonies.

Sergius and Bacchus: Patrons Saints of Gay Marriage?

Even if same-sex marriage were brand new, that would have no impact on whether or not it is a right under the United States Constitution. I'll let Thomas Jefferson make the final argument in regards to Alito's misguided (to put it kindly) comments on the "newness" of same-sex marriage:

I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

So... Bite me, Alito.