The more normal LGBT folks are seen to be, the less others fear them. I believe the expansion of equal marriage rights was a necessary step to full equality under the law; otherwise, ENDA would have been DRT (dead right there). As you say, it's flashy, and it appeals to peoples' hearts.

Aside from the riots of Stonewall, it seems every stride in equal rights has come about through working to overcome the demonization of LGBT. With every person of substance who has come out of the closet, every gay character written into a TV show, every piece of romantic same-sex fiction, we all realize more just how much we are all the same, and yet, how much diversity there is in being human.

I never had much of an opinion on LDS until Prop 8.Now, like you, I hope their anti-gay fervor creates the backlash to obtain the Supreme Court decision even Justice Scalia knows is inevitable.

Irony can be a beautiful thing.

As someone who is 21, and about to enter the workforce full-time in the next couple months, ENDA is far more important to me than marriage equality. I have a long-time (for my age) boyfriend, but have no desire to get married. To me, marriage represents settling down, and getting into a boring, predictable, suburban routine that at such a young age I want no part of. In ten years it'll be different, but not right now. 

I plan on going into policing, which is a very hetero-normative, macho occupation where being gay isn't exactly a sought after trait in most police forces. So it would be nice to have that security of not having to fear being fired just for liking other guys. 

Like everything else in life, it all comes to down to prioritizing the equality fight based on who's funneling in the money to fund it. The gay rights movement is funded by wealthy, urban, older, white gay males who don't need job security because they are already financially and economically secure. They don't have to worry about job security. But they would like to be able to marry, so they donate to groups like the HRC, etc. with the condition that it is used to push their agenda at the expense of other priorities that matter more to other groups. ENDA, HIV-AIDS, and other issues in the gay community have been close to abandoned because those funding it have other priorities. 

Here's the thing. The older gays can throw as much money as they want at the problem, but it'll only do so much. The real campaign for changing people's perception of LGBT people is being done by the under 30 crowd just by being normal and well-integrated into mainstream society. We show we can fit in just like everybody else, and it's helped shed the outsider status that those generations before us bore. Of course there are other factors at play too, but I believe its the biggest part of it.

I'll take a passage of ENDA any day over a passage of a federal "marriage equality" bill any day. But that doesn't mean to say I'm not happy about the progress being made on the marriage front either. 

I miss The Soapbox.

Matt, you're right. Changing people's perceptions is best done by just living your life in the open.

Marriage equality isn't about changing perceptions, but changing laws that penalize a certain group of people. It has only become possible since attitudes have begun to change. And attitudes have only begun to change because LGBT folks are living in the open, being normal and well-integrated into society.

ENDA is a great idea and ideal, but it's gonna be as tough to enforce as any anti-discrimination law.

Any progress made on any front in the struggle for equal rights is an improvement.

New attitudes have enabled new laws. New laws enable more open lives, without fear. More open lives enable evolved attitudes. I think we've all got the same destination in sight.