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Rose Wilson wouldn't exactly call herself a political activist. The 49-year-old Ohio mother of two had always voted on Election Day. But this year she wanted to do more.

In the months leading up to the election, the highest court in Massachusetts had legalized civil marriage between homosexuals. Lawsuits seeking the same outcome were spreading across the country. Wilson, who works part-time in a gift-basket shop in northwest Dayton, feared her state was next.

Wilson circulated a petition, gathering signatures to get what would become known in Ohio as Issue One—a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships—on the November 2 ballot. A close friend, Renee Abney, launched the local petition initiative "by the leading of the Spirit" after receiving a mass mailing from James Dobson of Focus on the Family (see interview on p. 60).

"I'm very passionate about God's plan for the family," Abney, 42, says. The push for marriage between homosexuals, she says, is not just about "some people wanting more rights. It's about the Enemy trying to alter God's plan." Neither Wilson nor Abney had previously been active in politics. But both women, who are African American, do not consider themselves aligned with the Republican Party.

In just three weeks, the volunteers Abney recruited gathered roughly 1,500 petition signatures. They had become part of a grassroots revolution spreading across the state. By the deadline for submission of the petition last July, various groups statewide had collected more than 557,000 signatures. An energized grassroots network had formed—setting up the 62 percent to 38 percent vote in favor of the new state constitutional ban.

Ten other states—Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah, and Oregon—passed similar prohibitions. But the amendments may become the next casualties in an expanding national struggle.

"We fully expect a tsunami of litigation," says Matt Daniels, president of the Alliance for Marriage. AFM is a nonpartisan coalition seeking to amend the U.S. Constitution to prevent the redefinition of marriage. Daniels fears that state and federal judges will invalidate the measures.

Except for some continuing efforts to educate church members, the battle has now substantially moved from the ballot box to the courtroom.

Roughly 40 states now have legislation aimed at preserving the definition of marriage as a union between one man and one woman. These initiatives, dubbed Defense of Marriage Acts (doma), take three forms: nonbinding resolutions, marriage statutes, and constitutional amendments.

In the wake of the November election, 17 states have adopted constitutional amendments. The strongest of the three legislative tacks, they ban marriage between homosexuals. Several other states are considering amendments.

But liberal civil-rights groups are seeking to overturn existing doma legislation in both state and federal courts. In October, a district judge struck down the Louisiana marriage amendment, which garnered 78 percent of the votes a month earlier. The judge said it violated the state's rule that constitutional amendments deal only with one subject. On November 3, one day after the Oklahoma marriage referendum passed, two homosexual couples sued to overturn the measure. A week later, activists filed suit in Georgia.

"The way we do this is through a period of what I call patchwork," Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, a homosexual activist group in New York, told reporters two days after the election.

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January 2005, Vol. 49, No. 1