For over a decade, the issue of same-sex marriage has been a flashpoint in American politics, setting off waves of competing legislation, lawsuits and ballot initiatives to either legalize or ban the practice and causing rifts within religious groups. The legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States has become a relatively recent goal of the gay-rights movement, but over the last few years, gay-rights organizers have placed it at the center of their agenda, steering money and muscle into dozens of state capitals in an often uphill effort to persuade lawmakers.
Proponents of same-sex marriage have long argued that the institution of marriage is a unique expression of love and commitment and that calling the unions of same-sex couples anything else is a form of second-class citizenship; they also point out that many legal rights are tied to marriage. Those opposed to same-sex marriage agree that marriage is a fundamental bond with ancient roots. But they draw the opposite conclusion, saying that allowing same-sex couples to marry would undermine the institution of marriage itself.
Most states have shown caution in changing the status quo. But Washington, D.C., Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. And in June 2011, New York lawmakers voted to legalize same-sex marriage, making New York the largest state where gay and lesbian couples are able to wed and giving the national gay-rights movement new momentum from the state where it was born. Days later, the Rhode Island State Senate approved a bill allowing civil unions , despite fierce opposition from gay rights advocates who called the legislation discriminatory.
Beyond symbolism, gay-rights advocates said that New York had provided them with a new political model . The movement’s success in New York and other places could prove difficult to replicate. Twenty-nine states have constitutional bans on same-sex marriage, while 12 others have laws against it. Gay-rights groups are likely to seek ballot initiatives in 2012 to overturn bans on same-sex marriage in Maine, where the Legislature approved a same-sex marriage law in 2009 that voters almost immediately turned back, and in Oregon.
A California court in 2008 ruled that a law barring same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. In a referendum that November, a ballot measure known as Proposition 8 was passed that restored the ban. Proposition 8 withstood a challenge in the state Supreme Court, which upheld the ban while allowing the marriages performed before it took effect to stand. But in August 2010, a federal judge found it unconstitutional, in a ruling that both sides say will end up before the Supreme Court. The ban ceased to have effect on Aug. 18, 2010.
In February 2011, President Obama, in a major legal policy shift, directed the Justice Department to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act — the 1996 law that bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages — against lawsuits challenging it as unconstitutional.
Legally, there is still a long way to go before the issue is settled. Mr. Obama's decision has generated only mild rebukes from the Republicans hoping to succeed him in 2012, but House Republicans made plans to intervene, possibly by seeking to have Congress made a party to the suit.
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