EVAN WOLFSON

2006 was a challenging year for the movement to end marriage discrimination, a year in which several courts stumbled and the whole country staggered under the weight of the worst administration in American history. When the high courts of New York and Washington handed down shoddy, unconvincing rulings refusing to strike down same-sex couples’ exclusion from marriage, yet another wave of punditry pronounced the marriage equality movement premature, inconvenient and just too demanding.

Happily, a unanimous ruling from the NJ Supreme Court put wind back in the sails of same-sex couples. And when the November elections signaled that America’s fever had broken, a new day dawned. Amid the pain of more anti-gay constitutional amendments, one of which failed for the first time, pro-marriage candidates got elected in state legislatures, city halls and governor’s offices. Public opinion continued its movement toward support for ending marriage discrimination.

In 2007, a record number of pro-marriage bills were introduced, while courts in California, Iowa, Connecticut and Maryland continued to hear cases brought by couples challenging their unfair exclusion from marriage. Bills to create "civil unions" or "partnerships" as an interim step toward marriage equality advanced in states as diverse as Oregon, Illinois, New Mexico, Washington and New Hampshire—all products of the work to win marriage itself.

In 2007, it was the conversation about marriage, and even the state Supreme Court’s stumble, that moved the Washington legislature to enact a "first steps" partnership bill by a whopping margin. Likewise, introduction of marriage bills in New Hampshire and Illinois this year vastly upped the ante and helped civil union progress in those states, while underscoring that marriage itself remains the frame and the goal, as well as the engine of advance. After more than a decade of the marriage debate, it remains true that the states that make the most gains for same-sex couples (and, incidentally, for unmarried different-sex couples) are those where advocates fight hardest for the freedom to marry.

As I wrote in my book, Why Marriage Matters, the classic pattern of civil rights advance in America is patchwork—some states move to equality faster, while others resist and even regress for a time, while fair-minded people, engaged, open their hearts and minds. We are in the patchwork period now, advancing toward marriage equality nationwide. In some states, our challenge now is not to plateau at civil unions, partnerships or any other lesser and unequal treatment that fails to provide true equality.

Meanwhile, in many other states, the challenge is both, first, to have the needed conversations about who gay families are—and how the denial of marriage harms them—and, second, to overcome discriminatory amendments to state constitutions. In "amendment states," we lost the election campaign, but now begin the real campaigns to change hearts, minds and the law. This time, in this true campaign, we can fight it on our terms, without the constraints of the enemy’s election timeframe.

While we talk about marriage, families and fairness, we must move forward in every state on a host of fronts, including partnership ordinances and company policies, local non-discrimination laws and more highlighting of the experiences of our kids and seniors. Done right—that is, without undercutting our claim to marriage itself—it all helps bring marriage equality closer. We will stoke buyer’s remorse on the part of those who were forced to vote up or down on something hard before we’d had the chance to give them the information they deserved and the time they needed to get it right. And then, we’ll bring that discrimination down.

Why talk about marriage in civil union or amendment states? Because only the freedom to marry brings full citizenship and equal protection—and because the marriage debate is the most powerful engine of greater progress. We need to get non-gay people to care about ending exclusion, and you can’t get people to care if you begin by saying you don’t care.

Amendment or not, pressure to settle for civil unions notwithstanding, marriage equality is within reach in all 50 states—if we do the reaching.

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