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It has been over 50 years since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down racist laws that consigned African American children to attending separate, but supposedly equal, schools.

The court's ruling held, essentially, that the underlying notion of "separate but equal" school facilities was itself unconstitutional.

Today no one questions that decision, and no one would (at least not publically) suggest that we ought to go back to the segregated world of the 1940s and before.

Yet, many of the same people who understand that it is wrong to give children different educational experiences because of the color of their skin, still hold that it is acceptable to give couples in committed, loving relationships different legal rights on the basis of the shape of their genitalia.