Between the time we’ve finished this column and the time this article goes to press Tuesday morning, it’s entirely likely that several more completely improbable states will have been added to the list of places you can get married to the same sex.

Few at Georgetown — or at least fewer than ever — would dispute that this is a good thing. But in states like Idaho, Oklahoma and Utah, it’s likely that if left to the will of the voters, it might have been another 10 to 20 years before marriage equality has achieved.

Instead, in the next few weeks, thousands of couples with cumulative centuries of commitment will express their legally official love for each other. It’s a ringing endorsement of our two favorite things: love and an independent judiciary.

Both of us, of course, are exhilarated, with one of us (Tom) already convincing many of his friends to hold their now-legal weddings in the scenic Salt Lake Valley (Tucker would be glad to attend, but is concerned that Utah weddings might not serve champagne…).

Those future weddings, like the hundreds of “I dos” being spoken in courthouses throughout Mormonville, reflect dozens of years of change in and around the once-impregnable Christian conservative fortresses of America: the Mountain West and the Southeast.

In Utah, the only place on earth Tom can speak about with any authority, change has taken place among the attitudes of the faithful themselves, with a quickly growing minority that supports gay marriage.

However, this change is really the latest manifestation of a much deeper transformation that is taking place across the once-dusty frontier towns of America’s hinterland. Whether in Nebraska or North Carolina, states once defined by monoculture, family, and strong local, civic and religious ties are now becoming more diverse, secular and individualistic.

In other words, they are becoming liberal.

This, of course, does not mean that #ReadyforHillary will sweep the Midwest in 2016, though one can hope all the same. But what it does mean is that the most distinctive, if only ambiguously good, characteristics of the hometowns of hundreds of Hoyas are changing.

And so even as we celebrate this monumental victory, the good sportsmen in us also recognize that other valuable social goods — among them religious cohesion and civic interdependence — are either disappearing entirely or becoming something as yet unrecognizably new. This change will continue and may accelerate, as the American story continues to unwind.

Beyond our doubt, the rights extended this past week and in recent years to LGBTQ people is an incredible achievement of equal justice under law. But we also acknowledge that many people do not share our belief for respectable, even laudable, reasons. If we are to celebrate freedom of religion, we must also celebrate those who practice their religion in ways that we find strange, even personally unthinkable. Tom, who shares a Mormon faith that many have called strange, feels deeply for both sides of this argument.

This has long been Georgetown’s story and there are certainly those at Georgetown who do not support the advance of LGBTQ rights. What place will they have in our society? What respect do we afford them?

That is a question that we — both these erstwhile columnists and our broader community — have yet to answer. But we think there is a wrong answer. People with anti-LGTBQ views will certainly never learn differently, nor will their views be challenged if they feel forced to shut up and keep it to themselves at the risk of becoming social pariah. Such isolation of people with views different from our own does not facilitate progress; rather, it only encourages more isolation.

Many of those currently complaining about these legal and demographic changes grumble, first and foremost because they no longer recognize the communities of their youth and because they fear that their values and way of life are becoming irrelevant. It is up to us to show them otherwise. Shunning or attacking such people will only confirm their greatest fear.

As such, we ought to remember the words of the Speech and Expression Policy that Georgetown students and faculty worked together to write 25 years ago: “More is better.”

They were right and their words are still true today.

We can have a society, both at Georgetown and in every one of these states, where all people are treated with respect and justice. Victories in the courtroom and at the ballot box help to get us there, but so does discourse, engagement and dialogue. Both are wonderful, but let’s not have one without the other.

Tucker Cholvin and Thomas Christiansen are seniors in the School of Foreign Service. Culture Clash appears every other Tuesday. This column originally appeared in print as “Pluralism Still Essential Amid Gay Marriage Wins.”