Progress is No Disgrace
I am reading Daniel J. Boorstin's The Seekers. I was fascinated by his chapter on the rise of Christianity (and "The Church" as corporation) in the mid fourth century. Particularly interesting was his observation that St. Augustine's The City of God was written as a Christian apology for the sack of Rome (i.e., that he worried that Christians — N.B. not homosexuals — would be blamed for "The Fall of Rome").
A turning point came in the late fourth century, in a public debate over whether to reinstall the [pagan] Altar of Victory in the Roman Senate Hall.
Speaking in favor of the new religion of followers of Jesus was Saint Ambrose, who said
Nullus pudor est ad meliora transire
(It is no disgrace to pass on to better things.)
Modern-day Christian zealots in the US, those who hope to insist on an adherence to their orthodoxy and tradition, would do well to remember the time when they were the upstart organization: young, vibrant, filled with new ideas and not yet ossified into a corrupt, multi-national corporation.
Currently they put an inexplicable amount of effort into advancing the propaganda (which has no historical validity) that marriage is a tradition unchanged from a time before history and therefore should stay that way. Perhaps they can take comfort, while witnessing continuing human progress that welcomes broader freedom and wider equality, from the knowledge that their own earliest propaganda put forward their religion as a new idea embodying welcome progress in the face of unsatisfactory tradition, arguing that there is no disgrace in progress.