In its surprising decision not to hear any of the seven appeals asking them to overturn lower court rulings that found a constitutional right to same-sex marriages, the U.S. Supreme Court appeared satisfied to let societal and legal support for such marriages continue building.

It is a wise decision, though frustrating for those same-sex couples living in states (now a minority number) that continue to ban such marriages. But by not laying its heavy hand on the issue - and definitively ruling there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriages - the high court provides room for a consensus to build in favor of legalizing these unions.

All the lower appellate courts, after reviewing past Supreme Court decisions, found that banning same-sex couples from getting marriage licenses violates their equal rights. With no conflicting case to consider, the high court had no urgency to act.

In time, and not a long time, the few remaining states that continue to dig in against same-sex marriages will appear as remnants of a less tolerant era, their claims that these unions endanger traditional heterosexual unions or undermine families exposed as baseless. Polls show that a majority of Americans support the right of same-sex couples to marry, including about three-quarters of those under age 30.

At some point, particularly if an appellate court upholds a state ban, the Supreme Court could well act to relegate the same-sex prohibition to history. By then, it will be a decision with wide acceptance.

In any event, there seems no reasonable path back for the court. Three federal appeals courts have found marriage bans in Virginia, Utah, Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Indiana unconstitutional. Those decisions, now left standing by the Supreme Court, also extend to six other states in the appellate circuits of those courts.

Effectively, civil same-sex marriages are legal in 30 states because of court decisions, legislation or both, as was the case in Connecticut. Our state stands as a proud leader in this civil rights movement, among the first to sanction same-sex unions.

At the federal level, the key decision came in June 2013 when the Supreme Court struck down the bulk of the Defense of Marriage Act. DOMA had defined marriage as between a man and a woman and precluded those in same-sex marriages from obtaining federal benefits, even when a state had recognized their union as legal.

"(DOMA) imposes a disability on the class by refusing to acknowledge a status the State finds to be dignified and proper. DOMA instructs all federal officials, and indeed all persons with whom same-sex couples interact, including their own children, that their marriage is less worthy than the marriages of others," wrote Justice Anthony M. Kennedy in the majority opinion.

While the Supreme Court did not go so far in that case a to rule bans on homosexual unions as unconstitutional, Justice Kennedy's strong opinion has resonated with the lower courts, leading to the so far unanimous decisions that have found same-sex marriage prohibitions to be unconstitutional.

In case after case, opponents of homosexual marriages have been unable to demonstrate any harm that would come to others by allowing people of the same gender to marry. Connecticut has not seen any great social upheaval since its marriage law changed.

Churches remain free to follow their own religious convictions and not sanction such marriages, but they have no authority to impose their beliefs in the civil realm. Society and the law are moving together in the right direction.