There were times in America when black people couldn't go to the same schools as white people, women weren't allowed to vote and interracial marriage was illegal.

Is same-sex marriage another chapter in America's civil rights struggle, taking its place alongside blacks not being allowed to drink from whites-only water fountains?

“Yes, absolutely,” said Douglas Oden, president of San Diego branch of the NAACP, the nation's oldest civil rights organization. Oden grew up as schools were being desegregated and the women's rights movement was flowering. “This is just an extension.”

Generations from now, the Rev. Dan Koeshall, senior pastor of the predominately gay Metropolitan Community Church of San Diego, predicts people will ask one question: “Why did it take so long?”

But to opponents who see homosexual behavior as immoral and sinful, this issue has nothing to do with equality and everything to do with preserving a way of life they view as sacred.

Legal timeline 1857:  U.S. Supreme Court rules that slaves do not become free when taken into a free state, Congress cannot bar slavery from a territory and blacks cannot become citizens. 1865:  The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, abolishing slavery. 1920:  The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution becomes law, giving women the right to vote. 1954:  U.S. Supreme Court unanimously agrees that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional, overturning an 1896 ruling. 1964:  President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin. 1967:  U.S. Supreme Court rules that prohibiting interracial marriage is unconstitutional (16 states still banned interracial marriage at the time of the ruling). 1982:  Wisconsin becomes first state to outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. 2003:  U.S. Supreme Court rules that sodomy laws are unconstitutional. 2004:  Same-sex marriages begin in Massachusetts after Supreme Judicial Court rules that, under the state's constitution, it is illegal to allow only heterosexual couples to marry. 2008:  California Supreme Court strikes down voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages. In their ruling, justices cite a 1948 state Supreme Court decision overturning a ban on interracial marriages.

“It's definitely not a civil rights issue for this reason: Civil rights issues generally stem from immutable physical characteristics like race and ethnicity,” said Charles LiMandri, a Rancho Santa Fe attorney and general counsel to the National Organization for Marriage.

This week, the state Supreme Court came down on the side of equality. “The California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians,” Chief Justice Ronald George wrote in the majority opinion overturning a ban on same-sex marriage.

But the court's 4-3 split mirrored the issue's divisiveness and perhaps foreshadowed more battles yet to come.

LiMandri argues that the Bible is clear that marriage is between a man and a woman.

“There's no accident about it,” LiMandri said. “Men and women need it and society needs it. It's not a civil rights issue when you talk about what are collective human experiences . . . it's something that's absolutely essential to our survival as a species.”

One of the strongest local advocates for traditional marriage is Miles McPherson, senior pastor of The Rock, an evangelical megachurch in Point Loma.

“It's not a civil rights issue,” said McPherson, an African-American. “It's a spiritual issue, a religious issue. Marriage originated in the Bible. God originated it and that's who should decide what it is.”

A black person is black from birth, said McPherson, who does not believe gays are born that way and rejects research that suggests otherwise.

“When God says I created a man and then I created a woman to be united to that man, that's a whole different argument than saying a white person can't marry a black person,” he said. “That's a man-made rule, not a God-ordained institution.”

Oden, the chief of the local National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and an attorney, points out that Bible passages were once used to justify slavery and segregation. “If a church doesn't want to marry a couple, that's up to that church,” he said. “That's their own individual choice. But in terms of civil marriage, why not?”

Among other things, Randy Thomasson, president of the Campaign for Children and Families in Sacramento, a conservative lobbying group, warns of long-term consequences for children if society strays from the man-woman model of traditional marriage.

“If we don't teach them now that marriage is a special relationship between a man and a woman to which they should aspire, in the future the problem won't only be that they don't understand what marriage is – they won't understand the difference between boys and girls, males and females, or right and wrong on much else,” Thomasson said.

The Rev. Wilbert “Wilk” Miller, senior pastor of First Lutheran Church in downtown San Diego, cautions against simple answers. “I don't think it's nearly as clear as people want it to be,” he said.

“From my perspective, I think we really need to be looking at ways to support same-gender people by some kind of ceremony, whether that's a blessing, a union, a marriage,” Miller said. But he also knows his own denomination is one of many that have serious disagreements over homosexuality.

What will history say?

“I would hope that we would look back and say, 'What were we thinking?' ” Miller said. “But there's a learning curve.”

In Thursday's ruling, the state Supreme Court went back to a time when blacks and whites weren't allowed to marry in California. That changed in 1948, when state justices ruled it unconstitutional.

Intermarriage remained a state-by-state choice until 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a Virginia case that barring interracial marriage violated the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment.

Could that happen again with same-sex marriage?

“I don't think the present Supreme Court would be very sympathetic to that argument,” said Michael Parrish, a history professor at the University of California San Diego.

“I know that (Justice Antonin) Scalia has argued that there is no equal protection issue involved because the ban on same-sex marriage applies equally to men and women,” Parrish added.

And so the future of same-sex marriage is far from settled.

Even before this court decision, opponents had collected 1.1 million signatures for an initiative to amend the state constitution to bar same-sex marriages. They hope to get the measure on the November ballot.

“We've all seen this coming and it's not a surprise,” said McPherson, who estimates his church collected about 14,000 signatures for the petition drive. “We're ready.”

McPherson sees it as a repeat of what happened in 2000, when voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 22, which said “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

But opinion polls show opposition is softening. A 2006 Field Poll found that 51 percent were against same-sex marriage. Both sides are gearing up for an Election Day showdown.

“It's going to take a lot of work to make this stick,” said the Rev. William Sinkford, who in 2001 became the first African-American president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, a liberal denomination that ordains practicing homosexuals.

“Each generation has its opportunity to define once again who we mean when we say 'we the people' and every time we expand that definition, it's a struggle,” Sinkford said.

“The issue of same-sex marriage, marriage equality, is one of the struggles that our generation has to deal with.”

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Sandi Dolbee: (619) 293-2082; sandi.dolbee@uniontrib.com