Over this past weekend, there were gay rights protest marches held around the country, including one at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. The purpose of the protests was to express anger that California voters were persuaded to vote for Proposition 8 by a heavy influx of money for advertising from the Mormon Church and other conservative religious groups. California Prop 8 put a ban on marriage between two men or two women into the state’s constitution.

There are many who say that it is unfair to have “our” civil rights put into a state’s constitution. But nobody said it was unfair to include civil rights for racial and gender equity into state constitutions. I just don’t abide by this double-standard and this argument has never passed muster with me.

You know, gay people tried, but just couldn’t get their act together. The opposition was better funded and better organized. I know that hurts hearing that from another gay man, but it’s the truth. And unfortunately in politics in this country, money counts. Organization counts. Lacking either, or both, makes it almost impossible to win — even if logic and fairness are the issues of debate. People who don’t like you twist logic to their side. Even if they are wrong, their hateful, hurtful message is what most voters hear when advertised via the media using tons of money. And being politically active at the local level, I can affirm that most voters don’t know anything about the issues, and some only begin to look for information just before they cast their ballot. By then, it is often too late.

We have to face it, with the last eight years of political polarization fostered by the outgoing Administration led by the worst President we’ve had since RR, there are many people out there who just hate gay people. They won’t listen, and they won’t consider that marriage can be a civil matter and not harm their religious beliefs. They claim to be filled with Christian love for others, but demonstrate their hypocrisy in how they act. I pity those people — I don’t hate them. They’re too stupid to hate.

I met my partner on an LGBT march — “The March On Washington” — in April, 1993. Hundreds of thousands of people representing the huge diversity of the LGBT community participated. It was organized for many months in advance. That march has a very special meaning in our lives. I asked my partner why we wouldn’t consider going to one of the events this past weekend, and his answers were pretty much on target with my thinking, as well.

The main problem is that LGBT people have been asking for too much too fast. It is a HUGE shift for many people to go from keeping gays in the closet and pretending that they don’t exist to allowing two men or two women to get married. My partner has long advocated for taking “baby steps.” In the racial civil rights movement, well-organized activists moved through the process for many years, one step at a time. And there wasn’t the “complication” of racial civil rights having anything to do with religion.

Further, this past weekend’s protest was organized last-minute, so there wouldn’t be much of a crowd to make much of a difference. Local TV news reported that about 1,000 people showed up at the U.S. Capitol. Heck, on any sunny day of the year, it is common for more than 1,000 people to be on the Mall and milling about the grounds of the Capitol anyway. What probably kept crowds down was that there was a major meeting of world leaders for a global financial summit going on in DC also this past weekend, and roads were blocked and security was tight. Locals know that when things like that are going on, it’s best just to avoid going into the city.

I want to marry my partner and enjoy the same benefits under the law that man-woman married couples have, and have our relationship recognized by our state. However, I agree with my partner that we should go for “baby steps.” The chant, “marriage equality now!” has not worked. In fact, I think it has backfired. It’s scaring off people on whom we need to depend for support. We have to re-think our strategies as LGBT people, or continue to suffer failure.

In Maryland this year, I’ll be gently and quietly working with my elected officials to advocate for more advancements of civil recognition of our relationship, and support a strategy of incremental steps from there. We have already begun — two hearts, families, friends, co-workers, colleagues, critics, local and state elected officials… it goes on from there.

The United States has made so much progress in the last decades in some civil rights matters. The most obvious being the active participation in our political process by people of all races.

We just elected our first Black President. All the pundits everywhere you turn — in the press, television, blogs, and the internet in general — are all exclaiming how proud and happy they are to elect a Black man as President. Some of this outcry by the media, to me, is disingenuous.

Mr. Obama didn’t win because he is Black — he won because of the nature of his well-organized, well-managed, highly skillful campaign, his unflappability in the face of fire with calm, steady reserve, for staying “on point and on message,” and also because of the backlash when people finally woke up to realize that the current President and his policies were so awful. And, I risk saying, Mr. Obama won despite the fact that he is Black. That’s a good thing. People overlooked race and looked at issues, and that’s how it should be.

Unfortunately, our country has a long, long way to go when it comes to recognizing that two people who love one another should have the right to be married, regardless of their sex. It became illegal to ban marriage between races. It should not be allowed to ban marriage between two men or two women who love one another. But that isn’t going to happen overnight, and those who demand marriage equality instantly don’t recognize that this struggle has the same time parallels as the struggle for civil rights regarding race.

Unfortunately, there’s a huge and different elephant in the room when it comes to civil marriage between two men or two women — and that’s religion. The problem is that marriage is both a civil contract for which a state issues a license, and a sacrament in most religions. Thus, the religious angle enters into and vastly confuses the whole matter. We just have to keep focused on the fact that a civil marriage is all we’re talking about — not a recognition by religion.

Our country, bless its mixed-up soul, has made great strides to go from laws that prohibited Black people from even voting to electing its first Black President, but we have regressed in a civil rights, as well.

Where is the regression? Some 39 U.S. states ban same-sex marriage by state constitution or statute, now including California, Arizona, and Florida. This is a matter that is fundamental to many of us who would like to have formal, civil recognition of our union of hearts — and the over 1,000 legislated benefits that go with it such as inheritance to taxes to guardianship of children.

With what looks like a defeat on Prop 8 in California, where now same-sex marriage will be prohibited in the state’s consitution — I don’t see any chance of progress on this issue for a long time to come. Heck, if the most progressive state with such a large Gay/Lesbian population can’t block a ban on civil marriage among same-sex couples in its state constitution, other states will be much less likely to consider any legislation recognizing our desire for civil recognition of our relationship.

It is a happy time for many people to be celebrating the election of our country’s first Black President, but it is a very sad time, as well, to see regression on a matter much more personal to my partner and to me, and many others.

But like the hard-working people who fought for racial civil rights, we have to be patient, we have to keep working, we have to keep demonstrating that we deserve equal and fair recognition under the law. We have to counter the attacks by the religious zealots who espouse Christian love for one another, and hatred otherwise. Their hypocrisy is clearly evident. People are seeing that now more than ever, and the power of the “religious wrong” is slowly sinking to a depth equal to that of their soulless actions.

As my eighth brother (AZ) said to me this morning on the phone, “patience, patience…”. I would prefer to have quicker movement on this issue, but I recognize that we must continue to work, one step at a time. Start with two hearts, then the families of those hearts, their friends, then on from there.