There is one stark difference between the ERA and gay marriage that bodes well for gay marriage over the long term. Gay marriage will eventually be decided by the Supreme Court, whereas the ERA has to go through the onerous process of ratification in Congress and the states.

Let’s hope that when the day comes that the Supremes rule on the right to marry, Obama will have had the opportunity to replace some of the right-wing ideologues with civil libertarians.

The Defense of Marriage Act, for example, which was intended to abrogate the full faith and credit clause, is unconstitutional on its face. One route to the Supremes could be when a couple who got married in California or Massachusetts moved to another state wants their marriage recognized, or if they chose to divorce. This will be grounds for a suit on the grounds that the full faith and credit clause should make their marriage contract valid in all states.

But it’s likely that Prop 8 will get to the U.S. supremes first, because, unlike the 29 other anti-gay marriage amendments, Prop 8 repealed the existing right to marry in California, and because if it is allowed to stand it will serve as precedent for using the popular vote to repeal other minorities’ rights.

Another factor is that the generation in their teens and twenties now are far more comfortable about homosexuality than their parents who are in their forties. This is true even among young evangelicals.

Even if the civil right of gays to marry fails in the Supreme Court in the next 10 years, it will return again and again until it passes, just like African American civil rights did.

Before then, however, I predict that gay marriage will be legal again in California within the next five years, and that it will be legal in the District of Columbia, every northeastern state, Illinois, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and possibly Minnesota within a decade.