Winning The Wrong Way?

Allahpundit, who supports marriage equality, doesn't like the Prop 8 decision:

If the goal of gay-rights activists is to make same-sex marriage palatable to the public, then embittering opponents by torpedoing a hard-fought democratic victory seems like … an odd way to go about it. The response to that will be that equality can’t wait, just as it couldn’t wait vis-a-vis school desegregation in the 1950s. Except that (a) no one, including gay-marriage supporters, seriously believes that the harm here is as egregious as the harm to blacks under Jim Crow, and (b) there was no assurance of a legislative solution to racial injustice in the 1950s the way there currently is for gay marriage. A strong majority already favors civil unions; as I noted earlier, opposition to same-sex marriage is in decline and down to 53 percent. When polled, young adults are invariably heavily in favor, guaranteeing that the legal posture on this issue will shift further over the next decade. The real effect of this decision, assuming it’s upheld on appeal, will be to let gay-marriage opponents claim that they were cheated in a debate that they were losing and bound to lose anyway.

I understand the point. At the same time, I am unaware of how to control this kind of thing. Olson and Boies were and are not part of the gay rights establishment; and anyone can bring a lawsuit. What we're seeing is a series of waves toward equality - in public opinion, legislatures, and courts. Each one has back-eddies. But I've been part of this for too long to believe this social change can be micro-managed, timed perfectly, or controlled by anyone. In my adult lifetime, this issue has gone from what was regarded as a strange obsession of a few (gee, thanks) to what we see today. I sure didn't expect that; but I am glad no one controls it.  Yglesias, for his part, isn't worried:

Whenever a favorable-to-progressives judicial ruling come down, the concern trolls come out of the woodwork to fret about the backlash. So in the wake of a win for the left on Proposition 8 in California, I wanted to go on record alongside Ryan as thinking such concerns are, when genuine, wildly overblown.