El Guapo wrote:Also, I suppose you would know better than me, but you really think the cap is at 17 or 18?
The following states have gay marriage today: California, Washington, Minnesota, Iowa, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.
These states will have it within days: Hawaii and Illinois.
That's 16 states.
One state is up in the air: New Mexico.
That's, potentially, 17 states.
One other state is in the process of repealing a we-hate-gays amendment to legalize marriage: Oregon.
Let's call that 18.
Which leaves 32 states. Of those thirty two, the following four have anti-equality laws, but not state-level constitutional bans: Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana and Wyoming. These states also have gerrymandered Republican state legislative majorities, so no equality is coming to these states anytime in the near future.
Eight more states ban gay marriage in their constitutions, which would be very difficult to change: Alaska, Nevada, Arizona, Montana, Colorado, Missouri, Tennessee and Mississippi. The two states most likely to work their way to being pro-equality in that bunch are Colorado and Nevada, but they both have civil union laws that decrease the pressure for progress.
The rest of the states have constitutional amendments banning both marriage *and* civil unions: Idaho, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Florida. The processes for amending these constitutions are daunting, and unlikely to be met in a low-turnout constitutional amendment election, even if these states' legislatures weren't dominated by gay hating Republicans, which most are.
Even after the states' population turns pro-majority, the state of play on marriage equality will doom gay citizens in between 28 and 32 states to, likely, decades of second-class citizenship, absent a SCOTUS ruling declaring that, yes, gay people are actually people and deserve equality under the law.