The Wrong Path To Equality?

Megan discusses prop 8:

In general, courts are the wrong place to press these sorts of claims.  The courts were appropriate for civil rights because blacks were literally denied the right to participate in the legislative democratic process.  And on a practical level, they worked because a majority of people in the country were more than happy to force civil rights on an unhappy white southern minority.  Unfortunately, too many groups have decided that the success of civil rights can be widely applied to circumvent the electorate on issues where there is no public consensus.  Now widespread gay marriage seems quite a bit less likely for the near term than it would have been had we attacked the issue legislatively.

If Megan believes we would even have a sliver of the protections we now have in civil unions and domestic partnerships if we hadn't fought for marriage in the courts and legislatures, she's mistaken.

You don't get half a loaf by asking for half a loaf. You get half a loaf by asking for the whole thing. And we did. In California, the legislature had already passed marriage equality, and the worst that has happened is that we are left with full civil unions on a state level. My further thoughts here. But as someone who has focused almost entirely on the persuasion and advocacy part of the equation, as opposed to the legal part, I am proud of my brothers and sisters forging the case in the courts alongside. We may have gotten a tiny but ahead of ourselves. But when you look at the last two decades of struggle over this, I still cannot believe how far we've come, and how many souls we have already touched. That's what endures. And in the end, triumphs.