So this week saw legislators in Illinois and Hawaii finally do the right thing and approve marriage equality in those states. That brings the number of states to 16 and 32% of the states. Population wise it bring a huge swath into the fold.

For example the entire Northeastern U.S. which includes Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut as well as New York and New Jersey.

Then there’s California, Washington State and more that I’ve probably missed. But the thing is a majority of them are high population. Just New England, New York and New Jersey comprise 42 million people. And if we go with the assumption made by the bigots that we’re only 2% of the population that means there are 847,600 gay and lesbian people in those states. However I’d say it’s close to 5% so 2,100,000 of us.

As I have said before, we have no passed the tipping point where equality will be the law of the entire land sooner than later. Whether by legislative action  or in states where no legislative relief is possible, through the judiciary.

Take for example North Carolina. They have  a Constitutional ban on same marriage equality. But those bans rarely stand the test of the judiciary. And I recall seeing videos of gay couples going into clerks offices in North Carolina  to obtain a marriage license and being rebuffed. Now think about this for a moment, why would these couples be doing this if it weren’t documentation for a challenge to the amendment? Granted the video has more value than a court case – but it is still a central component of a legal challenge.