Think back to the late ‘90s, when supporting gay marriage still carried more stigma than opposing it. The notion that a majority of Americans would ever support a man marrying a man was met with mockery. Homosexuality carried a strong stigma. Marriage just was between a man and a woman. Yet social conservatives would soon be shocked at the inadequacy of their once invincible coalition.

A small subset of orthodox Christians had reasons other than animus, or fear of change, for opposing gay marriage. They believed that marriage ought to be a procreative sacrament, saw all the ways that premise was undermined by secular society, and opposed all of them, not just the extension of marriage rights to their gay and lesbian neighbors. But most Christians had never bothered to think through the logic behind traditional marriage, never mind tried to persuade others that its premises were worth defending.

Whether wittingly or unwittingly, they were totally reliant on the stigma against homosexuality to preserve their notion that marriage was between a man and a woman. As it turned out, most Americans had long since stopped caring about preserving marriage as an institution focused on procreation. As the stigma against homosexuality faded and their status quo bias was challenged by persuasive arguments in favor of gay marriage, large numbers were willing to change their position. They realized that they had no rational reason to oppose gay marriage.

Today, pioneering gay-marriage proponents like Andrew Sullivan and Jonathan Rauch express dismay that, after majorities came to embrace their position, the coalition that used persuasion to accomplish one of the great civil rights expansions of the 21st century shifted from a posture of persuasion to a posture of stigmatization.

There is, of course, value to stigmatizing anti-gay animus, and it is possible that stigma directed even at opponents of gay marriage who are motivated by reasons other than animus has bolstered the civil right in some jurisdictions—it’s hard to know for sure. Even presuming that is so, the larger point is neatly illustrated by this hypothetical: If Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominees overturn the judicially created right to gay marriage, returning the matter to the states; and if the pendulum of public opinion or political power unexpectedly shifts, so that the legality of same-sex unions is threatened in many jurisdictions and overturned in some, who would be most effective at reasserting the case for same-sex marriage rights?

In the realm of opinion journalism, would proponents of gay marriage be better off if masses of swing voters read columns by someone with my background spending years persuading others that gay marriage is a moral imperative and a boon to society, at a college and a series of magazines where the subject was openly debated? Or would the pro-gay marriage coalition be better served by a journalist who is a bit smarter than me, and a bit more eloquent, but who came up in an era when social stigma long prevented opponents of gay marriage from raising the issue, and so had never before had to defend it?