The historic election of 2012 not only resulted in victories for marriage equality, but it also created momentum for further progress. As 2013 dawned, nine states--Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Maine, Maryland, and Washington--and the District of Columbia allowed same-sex marriage. In a number of other states, relationship recognition also quickly came to the fore.

In May 2012, Colorado Republicans in the state's House of Representatives had filibustered a civil unions bill, causing great frustration in the state's glbtq community. However, activists targeted for defeat a number of opponents of civil unions and made the civil unions defeat a major issue in the 2012 legislative campaign. The tactic was successful: on November 6, 2012, Democrats swept to control of both houses of the legislature. Even more delicious, openly gay Democrat Mark Ferrandino, who was a chief sponsor of the civil unions measure, was elected Speaker of the House, replacing Republican Frank McNulty who had killed the civil unions bill.

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With Ferrandino as Speaker, Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, and a governor who has been an outspoken advocate for civil unions, the twice-failed legislation was quickly adopted by the legislature.

On March 23, 2013, the Colorado House of Representatives approved a bill that authorizes civil unions for same-sex couples on a 39 to 26 vote, with two Republicans joining 37 Democrats. The bill, which provides all the rights and responsibilities of marriage, was previously passed by the Senate on a 21-14 vote, with one Republican joining 20 Democrats. Governor John Hickenlooper quickly signed the bill into law. It took effect on May 1, 2013.

While the passage of civil unions is the fulfillment of years of struggle by Colorado's glbtq community, it is regarded as a temporary measure until marriage equality is achieved. That cannot happen until Colorado's constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, which was adopted in 2006, is nullified by a judicial ruling or through a referendum.

Marriage in Rhode Island

Although Rhode Island adopted civil unions in 2011, they were not popular, especially since same-sex marriage was available in neighboring states. Large majorities of the state's voters had been in favor of marriage equality for some time, but it had been repeatedly blocked by Roman Catholic legislators, including most crucially the president of the state Senate, Teresa Pavia Weed. However, in 2012, under increasing pressure from her constituents and colleagues, Pavia Weed agreed not to block the legislation if it was reintroduced in 2013.

In January 2013, the state's House of Representatives adopted marriage equality legislation by a 51-19 margin. On April 24, 2013, on a 26-12 vote, the Rhode Island Senate passed the legislation with some minor amendments. The bill then returned to the House, where it was again passed by a lopsided margin. Immediately after the final vote, Governor Lincoln Chafee signed it into law. It takes effect in August 2013.

Openly gay Speaker of the House Gordon Fox and openly gay Senator Donna Nesselbush took leadership roles in making Rhode Island the tenth U.S. state to extend equal marriage rights to same-sex couples. In addition, all five Republican Senators voted in favor of marriage equality, undoubtedly the first time that a marriage equality bill received unanimous support from a state's Republican caucus.

Other States

A few other states offer a handful of rights to same-sex couples, but fall short of the rights conferred by domestic partnerships, civil unions, or marriage.

In addition, a number of cities and counties offer domestic partner registries through which gay and lesbian couples may qualify for a limited number of benefits.

Defense of Marriage Acts

When Mayor Newsom created a firestorm by permitting same-sex marriage in San Francisco in 2004, some gay advocates expressed concern that his actions may have hurt the cause of marriage equality. Indeed, President Bush referred to San Francisco and Massachusetts when he announced his decision to support a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

But the sight of thousands of loving couples, many of whom had been together for decades, sharing vows and joining in marriage also did much to energize the proponents of same-sex marriage. San Francisco's decision to issue licenses to same-sex couples in 2004, while perhaps not of lasting legal significance, provided huge symbolic support for marriage equality and eventually resulted in the historic California Supreme Court ruling of 2008.

Recently there have been encouraging signs of the increasing acceptance of same-sex marriage. Indeed, in 2011, three separate polls have shown that a bare majority of Americans support marriage equality.

But the achievement of marriage equality has been made more difficult by the Republican Party's routine use of same-sex marriage as a "wedge issue" by which to energize its base. Following the Hawaii decision in 1993, for example, states rushed to pass so-called "Defense of Marriage" Acts, which limit marriage to opposite-sex couples and bar recognition of any same-sex marriage or civil union from another state. Currently, more than 40 states have ordinances or constitutional amendments that limit marriage (and the recognition of out-of-state marriages) to opposite-sex couples.

The federal government passed its own Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, signed by President Clinton at midnight symbolically, if feebly, to express his disapproval. The Act defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman for all federal marital benefits and allows states to ignore the Full Faith and Credit Clause when dealing with same-sex marriages and civil unions licensed elsewhere. The constitutionality of the federal and state Defense of Marriage Acts is open to challenge, although given the conservatism of the current federal courts, such a challenge may be doomed to failure.

In the 2004 general election, 13 states passed constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. In the 2006 general election, another seven states adopted constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. However, in some of these states--Virginia and Wisconsin, for example--the 2006 amendments only barely passed, and in one state, Arizona, it failed, while in Colorado an amendment creating domestic partnerships almost passed.

What is especially disturbing about these amendments is that many of them ban not just same-sex marriage, but all forms of state recognition of same-sex couples. The Michigan amendment, for example, was interpreted by the Michigan Attorney General to mean that municipalities may not extend domestic partnership health care benefits to same-sex couples, an interpretation upheld by the state's conservative Supreme Court.

Amendments this sweeping may, however, be subject to attack under the United States Supreme Court's decision in Romer v. Evans. A federal district court in Nebraska struck down that state's extreme anti-marriage amendment under Romer v. Evans, though it was reinstated by a federal appeals court, and is now being appealed to the U. S. Supreme Court.

As more liberal judges are appointed to the federal judiciary by President Obama, and as more states permit same-sex marriage, an appeal to the U. S. Supreme Court challenging the Defense of Marriage Act is likely.

Two significant decisions from Massachusetts in July 2010 may provide the vehicle for invalidating DOMA in the United States Supreme Court. In these cases, brought respectively by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders on behalf of individual plaintiffs who had suffered loss of benefits because of DOMA and by the Office of the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Judge Joseph L. Tauro, a federal district judge, declared Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional.

This section of the 1996 law defines marriage as exclusively heterosexual for federal purposes. Judge Tauro, relying heavily on such Supreme Court rulings as Romer v. Evans and Lawrence v. Texas, ruled that this section violates the Fifth Amendment's equal protection principles and the Tenth Amendment's reservation of unenumerated powers to the states.