Instead of warning that same-sex marriage would lead to the brainwashing of children, the right chose to emphasize a different message: that the legalization of same-sex marriage would effectively silence its opponents, barring them from acting on sincerely held religious beliefs.

From the county numbers we knew that many Romney voters in Maryland must have crossed over to support same-sex marriage; now it turns out that Question 6 actually carried many of the state's best-known GOP strongholds. Republicans voted for Question 6 in serious numbers.

I wanted to share this conversation I had with David Mixner following Maryland's historic defense of marriage equality at the ballot box.

This year, marriage equality won four unprecedented victories in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington. For years, organizations like the so-called National Organization for Marriage have bragged that equality always loses at the ballot box.

Even before I knew the results, I knew that we were winning over hearts and minds. How powerful is it that this one woman's son decided to come out of the closet and that that one act turned an ardent Republican into a marriage equality supporter?

Not once in 32 previous campaigns were the efforts of marriage equality advocates sufficient. It took presidential leadership -- bravery, guts and plain human decency -- to add the final soupçon of sufficiency to allow us to run the table in a tidal wave of liberation this week.

No longer will politicians -- or anyone -- be able to credibly claim to be supportive of gays, and to love and honor their supposed gay friends and family, while still being opposed to basic and fundamental rights like marriage.

The gains made for equality are fragile, and we've seen what can happen when we allow those who stand against us to frame the message. The stakes for those of you with marriage equality on the ballot are high, and the implications for the rest of the country are huge.

We've seen millions of dollars spent on sleazy, misleading ads by anti-equality groups looking to scare Marylanders about what marriage equality is and what Question 6 means. Don't believe them, because it's really as simple as equality, fairness and justice for all families.

Marriage inequality makes LGBT people and our families inferior. Regardless of whether they were appointed by Democrats or Republicans, our nation's judges, trusted with the interpretation of our laws, are increasingly recognizing this reality. Maryland voters need to do the same.

Reverend Donte Hickman believes that marriage is a union between one man and one woman, and he will not marry same-sex couples at his church in Baltim...

“I think we’re looking pretty strong, but the other side has yet to put on their onslaught of commercials and fear and division,” Maryland Gover...

Ultimately, to secure the freedom to marry for same-sex couples nationwide, intervention by federal courts is necessary. But if our pleas are to be successfully heard by sympathetic judges, we must expand the patchwork of states recognizing same-sex marriage to the greatest degree possible.