"As long as we allow this to be dangled in front of us because of our unwillingness to say publicly what so many of us are saying privately, it will haunt the Democratic party. This is really one of the great final civil rights struggles. And again I say to my colleagues in the Democratic party: Why are you a Democrat if you can't stand on a fundamental construct that has always distinguished our party. That we didn't sit around. We advanced the issues of equality. We engaged the American people head on," - San Francisco mayor, Gavin Newsom, challenging the gutless Democrats on marriage equality.