While we may not yet have a majority in favor of same-sex marriage today, the trend of the numbers is in our favor. Defeating the amendment builds our hopes for the future and also gets Americans talking about the discriminatory rhetoric behind these bids to take away our rights. It gets people thinking about treating gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender citizens fairly. And it gets fair-minded Americans motivated to do the good work that needs to be done to keep us advancing.

Gay marriage is a matter of fairness, of making the American people realize that forbidding gays to marry is flat out discrimination, nothing more.

Marriage is first and foremost a social contract.  It is a legal status granted by the state.  Your moral or religious feelings on this topic become irrelevant when you view this purely as a governmental issue. 

Churches can do whatever they want.  I have long maintained that.  If they want to refuse to marry gay and lesbian couples, I support their decision to do so.

However, the state has no such option.  Its obligation is to provide the same rights to all, regardless of citizens' moral positions.  So gay marriage is not about churches or about destroying someone's religioius faith, it's about the goverment's responsibility to treat gay and lesbian citizens as fairly as it treats straight ones.

Gay marriage is a civil rights issue.

The link:  http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail.asp?id=31946