Once Upon a Time in Boston (REUTERS/Brian Snyder)

Ten years ago when I was doing a story on same-sex marriage, an advocate for gay rights said legal gay marriage would take time but would eventually become commonplace in America. It’s beginning to look like he was right and if prior highly-charged civil rights struggles are any indication it’s happening very quickly by historical standards.

Amidst the arguments for and against the central battle comes down to whether America is a country where the majority rules. The Founding Fathers certainly did everything they could to prevent that from happening with their rules to limit public participation in the sausage-making of government but there has always been a strong appeal to the notion that our laws ought to reflect public sentiment — even when public sentiment is off-the-tracks.

Which brings us to the case of courts conveying the right to marry upon same-sex couples and the countervailing push to have the public overrule or preempt the judges. Last November it worked in California. It did not work in Arizona. Now Iowa and Vermont have joined the club and present major difficulties for the anti-marriage forces. Iowa makes amending it’s constitution difficult and time-consuming. The earliest the Iowa court could be overruled would be 2012 and Massachusetts showed what can happen when people see gay couples getting married and the bedrock of civilization not crumbling.

Vermont is even tougher since, for the first time, the Legislature voted for same-sex marriage while overturning the governor’s veto. That’s an uphill battle, even for well-funded Mormons.

Both sides should look back to the century-long fight over interracial marriage for a lesson in how far public opinion can lag behind what courts deem fundamentally right — and how those strong feelings dissipate.

Hint: When people argue such-and-such will happen over “my dead body” they are right. It does happen as older voters with older notions of right and wrong die off.

Watch the video for more.

Gay Marriage Tipping Point from Jay DeDapper on Vimeo.