While I support gay marriage, using the courts to make it happen is the wrong approach. Doing so will ensure it becomes a long-term lightning rod culture war issue like abortion that is corrosive to the political process. Give it a couple years and the people will allow it to happen via democratic means, and will be a much more durable solution. While I know it will be discouraging for gays to wait for the country to come around, I think it will result in a better long-term result.
Never ever should anyone’s "rights" be up for some public vote.
The courts rule in favor on marriage rights almost every time BECAUSE they rule by the law of the land. The average voting public has not the intelligence to make such rulings via the ballot box. Hell... most straights still think all gays are hair dressers and want to molest their male child. Remember all the hype over the CA prop in the 1970's to ban and fire all gay teachers from public schools, so gay teachers would not have "access" to kids?
Thank God Jimmy Carter, running for president back then, always asked the CA people to vote against the prop, and the prop did fail. A lesson our current president should take from old Jimmy.
If racially based mixed marriage were put on a ballot, as is done with same sex marriage, mixed marriage would also be banned. I still notice the "looks" a mixed couple get when out together in public. You think black-white mixed marriage would still be legal if placed on the ballot in most states? Nada.
Freedom and civil rights (what we are talking about here) is for the courts to decide, NOT some easily misinformed mob rule in the voting booth. That is exactly why anti same sex marriage groups go into states and challenge same sex marriage laws. They know its a nasty dirty little loophole they have to use, where they can win by pumping in money and BS television ads.
A nice dirty little scam they have going, and the general public is no where smart enough to separate the truth from the lies.
That is why I believe fighting for same sex marriage rights state by state, is a waste of time. Courts rule correctly in favor of, while the voting public unreasonably knocks down the very fabric America was built on via the ballot box. Law of the land and constitutional guaranteed freedom for all is business for the court, who have the ability to apply law.
But until a federal challenge is brought and won, states will keep perverting the process of civil rights by allowing the public to vote against the courts, and the laws they interpret. After all, courts applying the law is the America foundation, the core of our existence. That is what makes us different from some third world country. That is what all wars we have fought have been to protect.