Gay and lesbian advocates had little luck in the 1990s as they lobbied Congress and the White House on same-sex marriage and on serving in the military. This decade, advocates turned to the courts, where they’ve had considerably more success.
Lawsuits challenging state sodomy laws and same-sex marriage bans have come to define the gay rights movement. Two men from Texas, charged with sexual deviance, convinced six justices of the U.S. Supreme Court that their private, consensual sex life was entitled to protection. That decision, in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003, helped motivate four state supreme courts as they cleared the way for same-sex marriage in their states, beginning with Massachusetts in 2004.
