3. There is no political emergency.

By the early 1960s, black Americans had experienced two centuries of slavery, another century of Jim Crow, and a Southern campaign of “massive resistance” to all ordinary political steps toward integration. It was painfully clear that ordinary politics was blocked by a regime of systematic violence, intimidation, and corruption. The racists who loosed dogs and fire hoses on children were capable of anything; nothing short of a full-scale national assault on racism could work. We would put troops on the streets if we had to.

Today gay Americans’ situation could not be more different. As was true for women’s rights advocates two generations ago, politics and persuasion are working, and working well. Already, in fact, a majority of American Catholics support gay marriage. Opposition is increasingly concentrated, and isolated, among white Protestant evangelicals, and even among them, the young are coming around.

Gay rights advocates thus do not need or want emergency measures. We need time and voice to finish making our case. There are no dogs or fire hoses in our way. In that respect, the race analogy is not only misleading, it is counterproductive.