By contrast, "the approach in California has been more incremental, trying to get people the best legal protection available," said Tamara Lange, an ACLU lawyer involved in the San Francisco litigation. "The strategy has been more legislative here."
The battle for gay marriage stems in part from the legal efforts of lesbians to retain custody of their children during the 1970s. At the time, gay men were more interested in issues of sexual freedom, Stewart said.
"I remember going around and trying to raise money, and the men would be, 'Why do we care about families? Families are used against us,' " Stewart said. "And then AIDS came along, and it changed everything."
Gay men found themselves barred from their partners' hospital rooms. When partners died, families swept in and took everything they had owned, leaving their lifetime lovers with nothing. Partners who left work to care for sick lovers were not entitled to government benefits.
"The guys woke up," Stewart said.
The younger generation of gay men also helped turn the focus to domestic issues. Unlike many in the previous generation, they wanted families and saw no reason why they should not have them. Gay male couples began adopting children.
Now that the marriage issue is before state courts, lawyers are looking to the state's highest courts for clues on how it might rule.
Experts who follow the California Supreme Court have said it would be less likely than its Massachusetts counterpart to approve gay marriages.
But gay rights lawyers hope that the justices, who are based in San Francisco, are sympathetic because they have a lot of personal exposure to gays and lesbians in the city and probably on their staffs.
The justices can look from their chambers in San Francisco across the street to City Hall, where couples of different ages and races have been lined up around the block to marry, many with children and parents in tow.
The jurists may even have heard from their offices the San Francisco Gay Men's Choir serenade the brides and grooms: "Going to the chapel, and we're going to get married," and the blaring of horns in support as couples emerge from City Hall waving marriage certificates and tossing bouquets to the crowd.
For all those reasons, gay rights lawyers believe that California may prove to be an ideal test case for their movement.
"I believe [that] with the benefits of five years' hindsight, we will view this as a watershed moment in lesbian and gay couples achieving full equality," Kendell said.
She added: "If we lose, I buy you the champagne."
