Last year began with much hoopla about the waxing political strength of gay men and lesbians. Instead it turned out to be a time of painful political defeat on Capitol Hill--and of a surprising string of court victories hailed by many as a watershed in gay rights law.

Across the country, state and federal judges ruled in favor of gays in a series of decisions involving marriage, the military, anti-gay rights initiatives and custody cases. Although by no means the final word in most of the cases, the rulings offered the gay movement its most tangible advances in 1993.

"From the point of view of the gay and lesbian community, the various court decisions are a remarkable and miraculous vindication of the positions we have held for many years," said J Craig Fong of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, founded 20 years ago to litigate gay rights cases. "These rulings provide the rationale for making gay and lesbian simply another adjective to describe a person and not a basis for discriminating."

While Congress and the Pentagon were blocking repeal of the military's ban on gays, federal judges were pronouncing the policy unconstitutional and irrational in opinions extraordinary for their sharply worded rejection of anti-gay discrimination. In five cases last year, courts ordered the military to reinstate gay service members or halted their discharge.

In Hawaii, the state Supreme Court cracked open the door to gay marriage when it revived a lawsuit challenging the state prohibition of same-sex marriages. A state judge in Colorado struck down an initiative forbidding the adoption of gay-rights laws. Pending trial, a federal judge in Ohio blocked enforcement of a similar measure approved by Cincinnati voters in November. High courts in both Vermont and Massachusetts approved adoptions by gays.

"I think this year was a turning point for gay law," said William B. Rubenstein, a gay-rights attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union and editor of a recent book on gay law. "Increasingly the courts are becoming a haven for constitutional protections from prejudicial public policy-making."

Legal experts describe the judicial gains as not only the product of years of groundwork by gay-rights attorneys but also the inevitable seepage of evolving public opinion into the courtroom. Even the bruising political fight over the military policy worked its way into recent court decisions to gays' advantage, advocates say.