State and local elections matter.

In fact, they're everything. Every member of the House of Representatives is elected locally, too. Any of us can influence those local elections with campaigning, GOTV activism, door-knocking and more. It is how we can influence the politics of the entire nation. We can do more with our time and energy than we can with our donations. That has been proven over and over again.

GOTV 2014!

Equal means equal. When two couples are treated very differently they are not treated equally. Local in this regard does not go nearly far enough. You can not make equality on a piece by piece local basis when the Federal law demands discrimination. To claim 'we have equality' is just false and rather self serving in my opinion.

That is how change is done. National changes are made either by the legislature and the executive, or they are made by the federal court system. We can affect both by electing people committed to those changes. Beyond that, we have no power to change federal law as individuals.

If I could, I would change federal law directly. I cannot, so I work to elect and to influence people who can. That is what I can do. In Minnesota, we have taken a step, and every journey begins with one step.

to ensure consistency throughout the country. However, it can start at the state level. Once enough states enact a particular law - marriage equality, for example - it will make it much easier for federal legislators to get enough support from their constituents to act on a federal level. Here in Minnesota there has been a big turnaround on marriage equality which occurred because we were able to elect a Democratic majority in the legislature as well as a Democratic governor. What happens at the state level makes a difference to federal legislators because ultimately they answer to the same voters. Action by states can lead to action at the federal level. It's not the ultimate solution but it's a good start.

there are 50 states. Marriage equality exists in 12 states. That's certainly not 25%. It's great that these states have marriage equality but let's not fudge the numbers.

A precise quarter of the states cannot exist. We cannot have 12.5 states do anything. With 12 states, we reached 24%. If you want to quibble about 1%, be my guest. My points still stand. Do you have "issues" with the rest of my post?

I qualified the percentage with "essentially," since it is impossible to attain an exact 25%. I did not fudge. I qualified.

Have a pleasant day. I'm going to be celebrating Minnesota's victory.

Silly point to make.

and employment or in any other way. So 59%. The Federal Law refuses to acknowledge these State laws, so when folks say 'we won equality' they are being very generous to themselves and not very thoughtful about the realities of this 'equality'. Sure it is good that it is done, but passing such laws should be used as platform to call for true equality, not as an excuse to claim that true equality is 25% accomplished. A straight here says 'all politics are local' to stroke themselves, but fact is without change on the national level, none of these State laws provide anything close to equality.
To call 'equal' a condition under which your community gets much more benefit than the community made 'equal' is clearly not equality.
In 59% of the USA, LGBT people have no protection from open discrimination and our marriages are not recognized by the United States government. 29 States and the United States Government openly discriminate against us. Is that also 'silly' to talk about when the straight folks want to pat themselves on the back?
Make some real change in DC. The rest is not worth much without it. Four years of 'reaching out' to Rick Warren and other hate mongers did great harm to progress in DC. And that was always the intention of the 'moderates' and centrists who want to claim to support while putting roadblocks and distractions in the path.
It gets old.

My points still stand, though, as I pointed out to the person making the objection.

California, depending on the Supreme Court ruling?

Looking at the map, I'd have said New Jersey, but if Chris Christie hopes to get the GOP nomination, he'd never allow it to happen.

It has passed their Senate, and is awaiting a vote in the House. The Governor says it will be signed. At this time, though, they're about 12 votes short in the House. I'm hoping that the success in Minnesota has some influence in Illinois.

Otherwise, California is the next best bet.