Gay marriage is the last bastion of, to me... as a legal

When Gus Van Sant spoke the words, “Gay marriage is the last bastion of, to me... as a legal, ceremonial, sentimental and religious side, it's one of the last steps. Retaining your job being one of the earlier steps, like, not getting kicked out of your job because you're gay,” he was not merely commenting on politics — he was tracing the arc of human dignity, the long pilgrimage from rejection to recognition. His words reflect the slow, painful journey toward equality, where each victory is a stone laid upon the road of justice. He names marriage as the “last bastion,” the final fortress in the battle for full humanity — not just legal survival, but spiritual acceptance.

In the tone of his reflection lies the voice of centuries of struggle. There was a time when the very mention of love between two people of the same sex was spoken in whispers, hidden behind walls of fear and shame. To be known was to be cast out; to be honest was to lose one’s livelihood. And so, the earliest victories — as Van Sant recalls — were small yet monumental: keeping one’s job, standing one’s ground, being allowed simply to exist without punishment. Such steps were the beginnings of freedom, though incomplete. For the soul of humanity cannot rest merely in tolerance; it seeks communion, ceremony, belonging — the right to love and be loved without apology.

The “legal, ceremonial, sentimental, and religious” sides of marriage that Van Sant names are not trivial. They are the cornerstones of human recognition. To be married is to stand before the world and declare, “My love is real, my life is worthy.” It binds the private to the public, the emotional to the eternal. Thus, for him, gay marriage is more than a law — it is a symbol of civilization’s conscience, proof that a people has grown wise enough to embrace all its children. It is the moment when compassion transcends fear, when society’s laws finally reflect the truths of the human heart.

History too echoes this struggle. In the year 1967, in the United States, Loving v. Virginia struck down the laws that banned interracial marriage. Richard and Mildred Loving, an ordinary couple, became the faces of extraordinary courage. Their quiet insistence that their love was as sacred as any other tore down centuries of prejudice. So too, decades later, would same-sex couples stand before courts and nations, asking not for privilege but for parity. Their cause, like that of the Lovings, was born not from rebellion, but from love — from the simple wish to be seen as fully human. Love itself became the battlefield and the banner.

Van Sant’s insight also recognizes that freedom comes in stages. The first victories are for survival — the right to work, to live, to walk safely through the world. The final ones are for recognition and reverence — to sanctify what was once shamed. This progression mirrors every great moral evolution in history: first emancipation, then equality, and finally acceptance. For what good is life without love? What good is tolerance without belonging? In naming marriage as the “last bastion,” Van Sant honors that final bridge — where law meets heart, and legality becomes legitimacy of the soul.

And yet, his words carry no bitterness, only clarity. He does not speak as one who demands vengeance, but as one who understands time — that justice unfolds slowly, like dawn rising over generations. The early steps may have been painful, the final ones resisted, but each has moved the world closer to wholeness. For the destiny of humankind is not division, but union; not the exclusion of difference, but its celebration. Equality, in its truest form, is not sameness — it is harmony among many kinds of love, many kinds of souls.

Thus, the lesson of this quote is both simple and eternal: that progress is sacred, and every step toward compassion is holy ground. We must guard it, nurture it, and continue it. Let no one grow weary in defending the dignity of another, for when one person’s love is denied, the whole of humanity grows smaller. When it is honored, humanity expands. As the ancients taught — to know love is to know the divine. And when the laws of men rise to match the laws of love, then truly, civilization has taken one of its last and most beautiful steps toward enlightenment.