Local and state government action
When the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in November 2003 ruled that the state could not refuse to marry gay and lesbian couples, the decision paved the way for the first state-sanctioned gay marriages.

The Massachusetts court decision energized gay marriage proponents elsewhere. In February 2004, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom told city clerk to make the state marriage form gender neutral, which led to the city granting marriage licenses to gay couples. The city issued over 4,000 marriage licenses to same-sex couples between Feb. 11 and March 11, when the California Supreme Court ordered City Hall to stop.

Local governments in Portland, Ore., New Paltz, N.Y., and Sandoval County, New Mexico, were among those that soon followed suit and granted marriage licenses to gay couples. The courts later stopped those local governments from marrying gay couples, but the cases are being appealed.

The Massachusetts court ruling stemmed from a lawsuit brought by seven same-sex couples who sued the state in 2001, claiming they were being discriminated against because they were not permitted to get a marriage license.

On May 17, six months after the state Supreme Judicial Court ruled that gays and lesbians had a right under the state constitution to wed, Massachusetts granted the state's first marriage licenses to gay couples.

Some same-sex couples from outside Massachusetts came to the Bay State to wed despite Gov. Mitt Romney's warnings that he would enforce a 1913 statute barring out-of-state couples from marrying in Massachusetts if their union would be illegal in their home state.

Local officials in the Massachusetts towns of Provincetown, Worcester and Somerville have said they will not enforce Romney's order and will grant licenses to any couples who ask, as long as they sign the customary affidavit stating that they know of no impediment to their marriage.

As those out-of-state couples return to their home states, they will be in legal limbo -- with marriage licenses in hand, but no guarantee that their relationship will be recognized. That could spark more court action. Complicated legal issues could also result from same-sex married couples from Massachusetts traveling or moving out of the state.

"Suppose that there is a couple in a same-sex marriage and they have a child and they travel to another state and the parent gets killed by a drunk driver and the other parent comes to take custody of the child, are they really going to say, 'Well, we don’t recognize the marriage so we’re going to treat this child as an orphan and you can’t have it'?" asked professor of law and political science Andrew Koppelman of Northwestern University, who is an advocate of gay marriage.

The prospect of possible legal battles stemming from the marriage licenses issued in Massachusetts promises to keep the gay marriage issue in the news throughout the 2004 election season.

Constitutional Amendment
The Massachusetts decision has heightened many gay marriage opponents' desire for an amendment banning same-sex marriage. In March 2003, Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., proposed a constitutional amendment stating, "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any state shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups." Under the amendment, states would still be able to grant civil unions to gay couples.

The amendment has not yet come up for a vote in the House, nor has a similar amendment come before the full Senate.

Although some gay rights activists were pushing for the right to marry in the early 1990s, the prospect of marriages for same-sex couples did not seem promising until a landmark 1993 Hawaii Supreme Court decision stating that prohibiting same-sex marriages might violate the state's constitution.

In that ruling, the court said unless the state could show a "compelling" interest in denying marriage licenses to gay couples, it would need to begin doing so.

As the case moved through the court system, it energized gay marriage opponents who backed an amendment to the state constitution giving the legislature the power to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples. In 1998 Hawaii voters approved that constitutional amendment. The Hawaii Legislature later enacted a law recognizing "reciprocal beneficiary" relationships, which allowed couples who cannot marry to receive some of the benefits given to married couples.

Beyond galvanizing gay marriage opponents within Hawaii, the 1993 court decision also strengthened their political muscle in Washington, D.C., and in statehouses across the nation. By 1996, more than 30 states had outlawed gay marriage and President Clinton had signed the Defense of Marriage Act.

In 1997, gay rights advocates launched another attempt to gain the right to marry and this time they targeted Vermont, a state known for its progressive politics.

Three gay couples filed suit there, arguing that denying them marriage licenses violated the Vermont constitution's "common benefits" clause guaranteeing the state will equal grant rights and benefits to all residents.

The case worked its way up to the Vermont Supreme Court, which in December 1999 ruled that Vermont was violating its own constitution, but the high court left it up to the state legislature to decide on a remedy.

That decision eventually led to the nation's first state-recognized civil unions in 2000. Those unions were entitled to all the same state-based benefits given to married couples -- from the ability to make medical decisions for partners to breaks on property taxes and inheritances. Federal rights, like income tax breaks and Medicare and Social Security benefits, remained unavailable to gay couples.

The year after the civil union law passed in Vermont, same-sex marriage supporters turned their attention to Massachusetts, where in 2001 they began legal action that would result in gay couples gaining the right to marry in the Bay State.

-- By Karyn Schwartz, Online NewsHour