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Thomas Jefferson himself said, under these circumstances, I withdraw something I wrote. Over the years, we've seen the expansion of the idea of civil rights. It took us about 90 years to get to the Civil War from the Declaration of Independence when we abolished slavery.
OK, fine. We have the 13th and 14th and 15th amendments of the Constitution, which expanded the idea of civil rights, ending slavery, giving blacks the right to vote, et cetera, et cetera. You know what?
We still didn't give women the right to vote. He said, man, you guys are still hypocrites. I think that's not the right way to look at it. The better way to look at it is to see society as an evolving thing.
Society doesn't change overnight. You could even argue the point that society shouldn't change overnight, because social change is a very, very big thing. Social change should not happen easily. If anyone wants to change society, it should be a challenge.
Why? Because you don't change society without a heck of a good reason and a lot of debate and discussion. It requires patience, maybe patience that is sometimes unreasonable, when people say, I want these changes to happen now.
Well, the world doesn't work that way. We have seen the expansion of civil rights into working class being able to form labor unions, and women getting the right to vote, right? And Brown versus Board of Education, 1954.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which included certain groups of people who were protected against discrimination in a public sense, and one of my personal favorites. It took until 1990 before the Americans with Disabilities Act said, you know what?
We ought to include disabled people in the list of people who are protected from public discrimination. To which some of us said, thanks. Took a while. And if we take this idea that in the public arena, in the public arenas of society, and yes, my friends, that would include getting a marriage license.
In the public arenas of society, we do not discriminate. Look at this university. Look at the variety of people we have here. I can remember, five minutes, thank you. Oh, great, I have more time left than I thought.
I talk fast. I can remember 30 years ago, yeah, I can remember more than that. I hate to tell you how much I can remember. But I remember the Civil War. It was great. Actually, it was horrible. I'm expecting a laugh, but that's OK.
My students know if they don't laugh at my jokes, it could affect their midterm and grade school. Anyway, right. I can remember when the idea that a university would have a gay students club was inconceivable.
It could not happen. Now I can tell you, most universities in America have a gay students club, along with the other students clubs. Besides, you have gay Republicans, and gay Democrats, and gay socialists, and whatever.
Yeah, we could have gay Republicans, gay Democrats, straight Republicans, straight Democrats, whatever. It comes under freedom of speech. And it comes under the idea that public discrimination is not right.
And as we have thought these ideas through on a gradual process, we have said, no. We are not going to discriminate in a public arena. Look how far we have come since 1776 in expanding the idea of who deserves equal treatment under the laws.
We've come a long ways. I suspect we're not done. I suspect our vision in the future is yet to be seen. What's going to happen in the future? I can't predict. I've seen things that I could never predict.
And the world moves on. And guess what? Society has not come crashing to a halt. Society has not come crashing to a halt by expanding the rights of people. Now, every time there is an expansion, there will be conflict and controversy.
You better believe that one. Whether it's the abolition of slavery, whether it's giving women the right to vote, whether it's the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, one of many civil rights movements in America, or the American Disabilities Act.
People said, my God, these disabled people, they're going to want special parking places. And guess what? We established handicapped parking places, and society has not come crashing to a halt. We got a gay students club here at Cal State.
Far as I can tell, the university hasn't come crashing to a halt. And we can argue many other things, too, about the sociological and other kinds of impact of marriage. And I must say one thing in the time remaining I have for my initial presentation.
For the record, because you have a right to know, I am a heterosexual married man. Second only to the love of God, the most important element in my life is the love of my wife. Because I believe in the power, the incredible power of a committed relationship.
I think in anybody's life, and I hate to say this to a bunch of students who are saying, hey, look, I got a date with somebody Friday night, and I got a date with somebody else Saturday night. I haven't been there, you know?
As I always say to my students, the most important thing a professor should never forget is he needs to be a student. I understand that. Maybe you guys at this point in your lives don't see an ultimate committed relationship as the center of your life.
You might get there, and you might see that the element of stability that this adds to your life is truly one of the most extraordinary and blessed things. And one quick point of that is this. We all know about the divorce statistics.
Indeed, thank you. The divorce statistics are very well known. But I'll just offer you one thought. What do most divorced people wanna do? Answer, get remarried. Why? Because they want that stability in their lives.
And they say, if I did not get it right the first time, possibly his fault, her fault, probably my fault, whatever. But let me try harder the next time. The statistics show easier said than done. But the stability is what makes life truly together.
Stand here, however you like.
All right, hopefully you can hear me pretty well. We have three minutes of cross-examination now to clarify. You said that society is an evolving thing. If marriage has, in fact, as you just mentioned, been decaying in its standing in our society, could you explain how fundamentally altering its definition would improve the situation or stop the degradation of marriage we see in our society?
That's an excellent question. Because as a sociologist, we examine many trends in society. And clearly, one of the trends that saddens us the most, saddens us deeply, is a trend that in modern societies around the world, the weakening of family structures is a very, very common thing.
We've seen it from Japan to Germany, from Russia to the United States. In all modern societies, we see the same phenomenon. Why it's happening, we're not quite sure. There's all kinds of theories. But clearly, anything that can strengthen the bond of the family is a powerful thing, and I know we agree on that.
The thought extends to other groups of people, too. We decided years ago that the forbidding of interracial marriage was a stupid idea. It violates the Constitution. We've done away with that. We've said it's no abomination to have interracial marriage.
Well, gay marriage, I would argue, is perhaps the most stabilizing influence in the gay community. I think the gay community, both gay men, lesbian women, same difference, they can benefit so much from the stabilizing influence of committed relationships.
Encourage them rather than forbidding them could be a powerful thing to help their own communities.
You did not mention in your opening, so you may take a moment to define this, but would you agree that same-sex couples should have equal rights to the right of each other?
I think that's a possibility. I don't know that forbidding it does any good to society. If we look at the overall interest of what is in the best interest of society, in general, and as well as these people's lives, we have many, many cases, lots and lots of cases, of lesbian couples who have raised children, both male and female.
The boys did not necessarily end up gay, no, not at all. The women did not, the girls did not end up lesbian, no. In point of fact, they have very often been very, very successful family units, and given the number of children who, sad to say, do not have stable family units, I don't think how it does any harm.