“Redefining marriage will have real-world consequences, and … it is impossible for anyone to foresee the future accurately enough to know exactly what those real-world consequences would be.”

These “real-world consequences” were suggested by Charles Cooper during the March 26, 2013, Supreme Court hearings about Proposition 8, the California constitutional amendment allowing only opposite-sex couples to marry. Cooper presented in the defense of Proposition 8, while fellow attorney and former Solicitor General Ted Olson provided the challenge. Both attorneys were unable to finish presenting the “merits” of their case in the time allotted, but it seemed Cooper and the defense could not have made any substantial arguments given all the time in the world.

Cooper was supposed to argue that the state had a compelling interest in preventing same-sex couples from getting married, but the argument that the consequences of ‘redefining marriage’ are unknowable — that there haven’t been enough scientific studies to observe the consequences of same-sex marriage — is easily refutable. After all, were decades of research conducted before 1920 to ensure that women voters wouldn’t weaken the integrity of the American government? Were there scientific trials before 1967 to prove to us that interracial marriage would be a good thing?

This argument, provided by the defense for Proposition 8 and those against same-sex marriage in every state, points out the unknowable future with which we are to contend. What, they ask, will be the result of raising a child without both a biological father and mother?

I would recommend the defense look a little more closely at the implications of this question. After all, if the Court was so concerned with ensuring every child has two married parents, the right to a “dissolution of marriage” (more commonly known as divorce) would be the first thing to go. We would also be seeing roughly 1.7 million court-ordered shotgun weddings every year, forcing all unwed parents to marry.

As Justice Kennedy pointed out, there are 40,000 California children being raised in families with two same-sex parents — children who want their parents’ marriages granted full recognition and status. Aren’t their testaments evidence enough that the “consequences” of same-sex marriage are not always dire? “The voice of those children is important,” Kennedy said. “Don’t you think?”

But even after these comments were made, Justice Alito reiterated the idea that same-sex marriage was just “too new” for us to fully understand the repercussions of making it legal.

“But you want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution, which is newer than cell phones or the Internet?” Alito said. “I mean we … do not have the ability to see the future.”

This is like saying, as MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow readily points out, that “we have an inalienable right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness — just so long as the specific type of happiness is older than mobile telephones.”

Are we supposed to deny our fellow Americans their rights for an unspecified period of time as we conduct further scientific study? We did not have the ability to see the future when we acknowledged Mildred and Richard Loving’s right to marry or when American women began casting their ballots, nor did we know what would happen when Ruby Bridges was allowed to walk up the steps of William Frantz.

We only knew that it was right.

The issue here is a simple question of the rights of U.S. citizens under the Constitution — the rights given to all Americans under the 14th Amendment. The defense for Proposition 8 is making arguments which not only have no substance, but are clearly refuted by history and current testimony.

Theodore Olson, speaking in response to Cooper and representing the challenge to California’s Proposition 8, said it best in his conclusion, in restating Justice Ginsberg’s opinion from United States v Virginia in 1996.

“A prime part of the history of our Constitution,” Olson read aloud to the court, “is the story of the extension of constitutional rights to people once ignored or excluded.”

Elaine Godfrey is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication and global resource systems from Burlington, Iowa.