By Steve Sanders

The year 2000 has emerged as the most critical period in the history of
the gay rights movement. Over the next eight months, state legislators,
the Supreme Court and the voters will determine in important ways how gay
and lesbian relationships are recognized, how effectively civil rights
laws can be used to promote homosexual equality and which side is
ascendant in the culture war over America's most controversial minority. 

This Tuesday, California voters will decide a bitterly contested ballot
initiative on whether that state should recognize something so
cutting-edge it's not yet legal: marriage between members of the same sex.
Meanwhile, legislators in Vermont are struggling with an order from that
state's high court to grant gay couples the same rights as married
heterosexuals. 

On April 29-30, tens of thousands of gays, family members and allies will
descend on the nation's capital for the "Millennium March on Washington,"
a weekend of speeches, spectacles, performances and prayers for gay and
lesbian equality. 

Later this summer the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on only the
third major gay-related case in its history, deciding whether state civil
rights laws trump the Boy Scouts' policy against homosexual members and
leaders. 

Finally, come November, voters' decisions on who controls the White House
and Congress may decide the fate of a proposed national non-discrimination
law, the future of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy and the
tone on gay debates set by the nation's elected leaders. 

These battles loom as gays are enjoying steady gains in public acceptance
and political clout. 

A new review of public opinion by political scientists Kenneth Sherrill
and Alan Yang, titled "From Outlaws to In-Laws: Anti-Gay Attitudes Thaw,"
shows that while 56 percent of Americans still believe homosexual behavior
is "morally wrong," larger majorities support equal job opportunities and
laws against hate crimes. 

Opposition to gay equality in areas like housing, insurance and
inheritance rights, and adoption has eroded significantly over the past
two decades. And at a time when gays are coming out as never before -- in
private, in public and on television -- polls show support for equality
increases dramatically when people say they have at least one gay friend,
family member or co-worker. 

But deep divisions over homosexuality remain, and no where more starkly
than in California, where voters in the nation's largest state will decide
this week whether to approve a law saying "only a marriage between a man
and a woman shall be valid or recognized." 

The issue is moot right now: no state gives marriage licenses to same-sex
couples. But the multi-million dollar media war over the so-called "Knight
initiative" (named for its sponsor, Republican state Sen. William "Pete"
Knight) has come to symbolize emotional political and religious
differences over how society should treat its gay citizens. 

As if to underscore the issue's ability to polarize, Knight's son David
revealed last fall that he is gay and estranged from his father. 

While gay marriage remains theoretical, the Vermont Supreme Court ruled
last December that limiting the benefits of marriage to opposite-sex
couples violated the "common benefits clause" of that state's constitution
-- an unprecedented victory in the quixotic campaign to legally recognize
gay relationships. 

Declaring gay couples' quest for protection and security nothing less than
"a recognition of our common humanity," the court tossed a political hot
potato to the state legislature, which must decide this spring whether to
simply grant marriage licenses to gay couples, or erect an elaborate
system of "domestic partnership." 

Domestic partnership would provide gay couples the same state-conferred
privileges -- such as the ability to make medical decisions for partner,
or inherit property in the absence of a will -- that married people get,
while withholding the "m" word and the social recognition it implies. 

Legislative leaders have signaled they intend to focus for now on domestic
partnership rather than expanding marriage. 

Unlike marriage, however, domestic partnership would not be recognized
across state lines.  Gays say it may represent a return to the "separate
but equal" status the nation's legal system long ago rejected for blacks
and other minorities. 

While Vermont deliberates, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on
another flash-point issue: whether a New Jersey civil rights law can be
used to prohibit Boy Scout groups from enforcing policies that exclude
gays. 

The Scouts expelled James Dale as an assistant scoutmaster after learning
he was involved with a gay student group at Rutgers University. Last
August, New Jersey's highest court ruled the Boy Scouts were covered by a
state law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
The Scouts have argued they have a special right to discriminate because
they are a private membership organization. 

Currently, only 11 states have laws that protect gays from various forms
of discrimination. 

That could change come November. Democratic leaders have pledged to pass a
federal law barring anti-gay employment discrimination if they regain
control of Congress. The Democratic party has stepped up overt appeals to
gays and lesbians, who make up an estimated five percent of the electorate
-- as much as nine percent in large cities. 

In the presidential primaries, Democrats Al Gore and Bill Bradley have
vied for invitations to gay community centers, fund-raisers, even on-line
chats, and have denounced the military's policy on homosexuals. 

The Republican race between George Bush and John McCain, by contrast,
seems like a contest to demonstrate who would take a harder line on issues
like "don't ask, don't tell," marriage and adoption. 

Bush has waffled on whether he would appoint open gays to his
administration and criticized the New Jersey Boy Scouts decision. 
Although McCain has had a cordial meeting with a gay Republican group and
denounced figures like televangelist Pat Robertson as being outside the
mainstream, he has endorsed California's Knight initiative and said of
homosexuality, "It's a lifestyle I don't approve of." 

Steve Sanders teaches and writes about gay/lesbian politics at Indiana
University.