So perhaps there’s some clarity emerging after all. The Republican establishment is visibly alarmed by Mike Huckabee’s rhetoric. George F. Will titled his Washington Post column last week “Mike Huckabee’s Appalling Crusade” and commented dourly: “Now comes the Apostle Mike, determined to save Christian America.” If Republicans understand their own options and interests, they will accept a same-sex marriage ruling as a gift, and find something else to talk about.

That’s admittedly a big “if,” and the gay rights movement is wise to temper jubilation with caution. In a sober new book entitled “It’s Not Over,” Michelangelo Signorile, a well known gay radio host and blogger, warns against what he calls “victory blindness,” which he defines as falling prey to “a kind of bedtime story that tells us we’ve reached the promised land.” Getting beyond “mere tolerance” and winning “full equality” is likely to remain an elusive goal, he writes.

In October 1972, as Justice Harry A. Blackmun was completing work on his majority opinion in Roe v. Wade, he took a legal pad and recorded his thoughts in anticipation of a decision that would declare unconstitutional the abortion laws in nearly every state. “It will be an unsettled period for a while,” he wrote. Is there a justice jotting similar notes right now?