The recent annual American Values Survey shows that 70% of respondents are in favor of same-sex marriages. Only 28% reported they didn’t want their gay friends and neighbors to tie the knot by matrimonial means.

This is a big shift from the way things were years ago. Homosexuality itself was considered to be gross and unclean because people didn’t understand that the love between two people of the same sex was not different from two people of the opposite sex. Now that gay people are more visible and more open, society as a whole sees that we’re not all deviants and tragic people.

The survey, released Oct. 19, showed that even those who are religious are cool with two men or two women getting married. Among the favorable groups were white mainline Protestants (79%), Hispanic Roman Catholics (78%), religious non-Christians (72%), Hispanic Protestants (68%), white Catholics (67%), Black Protestants (57%) and other Christian denominations (56%). Interestingly, 90% of those with no religious ties favor same-sex marriage, according to survey results.

I guess it helps when you don’t have a preacher speaking of hellfire and brimstone in the same breath that they mention gay people.

What really startled me was that 50% of Republicans reported they had no problem with same-sex marriages. When the issue wound its way through the federal courts, plenty of Republicans found cause to hate on homosexuals, saying that marriage should be between a man and a woman and comparing homosexuality to bestiality, cannibalism, pedophilia and an assortment of other bizarre behaviors. Now, you have the daughter of the late John McCain hosting and interviewing drag queens on “The View.”

The recent survey shows the most support ever for matrimony between two dudes or two ladies, which makes you wonder why two current conservative Supreme Court justices are calling for a reexamination of the 2015 decision that legalized same-sex marriage across the nation. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito cited the Obergefell v. Hodges decision when the Supreme Court declined to hear a case this year involving a Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis and marriage licenses for same-sex couples.

Thomas and Alito wrote that choosing to endorse “a novel constitutional right over the religious liberty interests explicitly protected in the First Amendment, and by doing so undemocratically, the court has created a problem that only it can fix. Until then, Obergefell will continue to have ruinous consequences for religious liberty.”

It’s sad that we have two such unenlightened souls sitting on the highest court of the land at a time when more people are adopting an attitude of live-and-let-live when it comes to their gay neighbors. I never dreamed we’d be hitting the 70% benchmark on people approving of whether my sweetheart and I choose to marry. It makes Alito and Thomas’ attitudes seem as outdated as when Black people couldn’t occupy the same public spaces as white people.

Thomas argues in his written comments that Obergefell marginalizes those who do not believe in same-sex marriage. Interestingly, before the decision five years ago, gay people who wished to marry were marginalized. You could get married in one state, but if you went to a different state, that state would tell you that your marriage isn’t recognized.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?

I’m concerned that, with the Supreme Court all but certain to have a 6-3 conservative majority in the near future, Thomas and Alito might entice their allies to undo the previous decision and allow bigotry to spread across the land again. How is that going to affect the countless same-sex couples who were finally able to legally tie the knot?

What about my friends in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, who have adopted two children, started a winery in the basement of their home and have spent many years becoming respectable members of the community?

What about my friends living down in Madison, Wisconsin, who have three children in their pride and are praying for Jan. 22 to roll around again so their children can go to school to learn instead of being stuck in a virtual learning environment?

What about a high school friend of mine and his fiancé living in Vancouver, Washington, who are hoping to continue their beautiful life together?

Who do these justices think they are that they feel they can get the Supreme Court to someday cut down the fulfilled hopes and dreams of hundreds of thousands of people? We have 70% of America saying, “Go, man, go,” but a court of nine is going to cast aside happiness in favor of so-called religious freedom.

That’s wrong. That’s something that will cause people to rise up a la Black Lives Matter.

Are Alito and Thomas ready to be responsible for that?