GARY BAUER • | OCTOBER 10, 2014 | 5:00 AM | The Washington examiner

The Supreme Court’s announcement this week that it will not review same-sex marriage cases from five states marks a significant shift in the legal battle over gay marriage. But the battle for the hearts and minds of the American people is far from over.

That’s because while most of America’s elite institutions overwhelmingly endorse same-sex marriage, there is one group that refuses to embrace it: the American people. I’m not talking about just older Americans and conservative Christians. I’m talking about a majority of American adults.

Of course, you wouldn’t know it by the triumphalism in the media.

This week’s announcement prompted many liberal journalists to declare the debate over.

The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson said the court’s decision means the country has reached “a tipping point” in which nationwide same-sex marriage is inevitable. An article at the Atlantic declared, “The Same-Sex Marriage Fight Is Over.” An author at Salon wrote that “after this week, even the most ardent opponent of gay marriage would have to concede it’s over.”

First of all, the legal battle is not over. If a Republican president appoints even one conservative to the Supreme Court to replace a liberal, the entire legal dynamic could change.

But the real debate is in the realm of public opinion, where there is a deep disconnect between the views of elites and those of everyday Americans.

According to a September Pew Research poll, support for gay marriage has declined 5 percentage points since February, to 49 percent. The numbers suggest that about 100 million American adults support the traditional definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

The poll also found that half the country believes homosexual conduct is a sin (up from 45 percent a year ago) and 49 percent believes wedding caterers should not be forced to serve gay customers if they have religious objections.

Without a doubt, America has seen a shift toward gay marriage over the past decade or so. But the idea that there is anything close to universal support for it is wrong. In fact, there is evidence that polling underestimates support for traditional marriage by as much as 7 percentage points.

Why are so many Americans afraid to tell pollsters they oppose same-sex marriage? It could be partly because the gay-marriage lobby has bullied advocates of traditional marriage and stigmatized (and even criminalized) opposition to same-sex marriage.

Among many elites, not only should opposition to gay marriage be marginalized, but as New York Times correspondent Josh Barro tweeted regarding what he termed "anti-LGBT" views, "we need tostamp them out, ruthlessly."

Americans take notice when people are punished simply for supporting traditional marriage, as happened when Mozilla Corp. CEO Brendan Eich was forced to resign for supporting Proposition 8, a ballot measure banning same-sex marriage in California.

As Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a dissent to last year’s Supreme Court decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act, “By formally declaring anyone opposed to same-sex marriage an enemy of human decency, the majority arms well every challenger to a state law restricting marriage to its traditional definition.”

Many same-sex marriage advocates will not be satisfied until all Americans are forced to embrace gay marriage and until those persons and institutions (including churches) that do not are punished.

The silent majority of Americans who believe marriage should remain the exclusive domain of one man and one woman have a duty to speak up. They should bear witness in their churches and broader civil society to the truth about marriage, religious liberty and the rights of conscience.

The only way for the silent majority to be heard is not to remain silent.