You betcha we do! Our arguments are strong, and it’s ok to voice them even in the highest court. DOMA cannot hold up without an amendment to our constitution, and I don’t think even the conservative bunch on the court can find otherwise.

Finally, it is risky! We do not make gains in this country by not taking risks. (Other civil rights fights required risks for their advancement, why should we be any different!?!) African Americans in the US waited, and from the civil war until MLK JR, only a small percentage were significantly advantaged, a small percentage were left essentially unchanged, and a significant percentage continued to suffer persecution, sometimes worse than immediately after the war! Did waiting work for them?

Yes, there may be a disasterous court finding (though I honestly don’t think so) but didn’t they have their share of bad cases (Plessy??? Dred Scott???) Didn’t it take a tired woman who refused to give up her seat on the bus to push their civil rights to the forefront?

We need Political wins (read as popular opinion and legislative ones) but there are three coequal branches of gov’t for a reason. The courts are there to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority, to protect the people from intrusion by the gov’t, to protect the powerless from the powerful! We are strong, our voices loud, but powerful we are not!

Roe and civil rights have no connection, and I don’t see the point of trying to create one. Yes, marriage equality and the right to control your own body are controversial issues. However, civil rights advance by allowing the majority to see that the minority is not all that different. If the supreme court eliminated the inequality, and GLBT people married, had the same rights as everyone else, what would change in the lives of the majority? Wouldn’t those who are reluctant to see us as people who deserve equality be “forced” to concede that we are in fact people, and deserving of equality? And if not, won’t those who condem us as less than worthy become a significant minority themselves? Racial civil rights have not eliminated all racists, and it never will, but I don’t hear anyone argue that the status quo is not better than years past.

We must fight for what is right. Goodness knows the other side is patient, and waiting for us to wither our way to rights, one microstep at a time!

You can’t get federal tax credits even now in Massachusetts.

Also, in your list of states that afford gay couples rights, you left out Hawaii… the one that ’started it all.’

As for the legal issues, he is legally male in all 50 states. We are in a gay relationship, and thus we fight the same discrimination as other couples fighting for marriage equality.

On a different note…We do live in a federal republic. We are a collection of 50 “independent” states, who have agreed to allow the federal gov’t supercede our individual state laws in certain areas, such as trade, defense, the treasury etc. We have left certain rights up to the individual states, such as the definition of marriage. HOWEVER, we as a federal republic, also require that the laws of one state must be respected by the other states. Family law has already been ruled in federal courts to be subject to the full faith and credit clause of the constitution. THEREFORE, DOMA must be ruled unconstitutional, at least with repect to other states needing to recognize all marriages from other states (two 13 year olds from Arkansas who marry, are still married if they move to NY for example). It may be a separate issue if the Federal gov’t must recognise all marriages the same. I believe they must, but it isn’t addressed by the full faith and credit clause, rather by equal protection clause.

In the end, I think we must pursue federal court cases to end DOMA. Once ended, and everyone learns that the Sky has not fallen, as have those in MASS and elsewhere, those who would discriminate against us will find themselves fewer and fewer. We should not fight this fight slowly. Sure we will win eventually, but not before my childrens children have been discriminated against!

I am in the David Paterson group. Let NY legislature vote! If we lose, we’ll know where we must bring the fight to bring equality. Let the current supreme court rule on DOMA. Yes, the odds seem stacked against us there. BUT, I don’t believe even these conservatives will be able to justify DOMA with the constitution. It is so obviously unconstitutional! (yet, there was the Bush V Gore decision, and the court is even worse now…)

You forget that what is driving this is the gradual acceptance of gay people and their ability to chose their partner. As acceptance rises, the opposition decreases (obviously).

Slow and steady wins the race.