22 GAY/LESBIAN GROUPS RESET PRIORITIES IN WAKE OF LOSSES: From the San Francisco Chronicle

Twenty-two gay and lesbian rights groups, smarting in the aftermath of the November election and bracing for President Bush's second inaugural, issued a unity statement Wednesday insisting they are not backing off marriage equality but will simultaneously push for other "common priorities."

These include hate crimes legislation, employment protection, immigration rights for gays and lesbian partners, overturning the ban on gays in the military and continuing battle against constitutional bans on same-sex marriage in states and Congress. ...

The statement -- signed by Lambda Legal, Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Log Cabin Republicans, Stonewall Democrats, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and others -- maintains that American civil rights movements have historically proceeded through a "complex interweaving of legal victories, political progress and advances in public opinion."

Noting that only 18 months have elapsed since the U.S. Supreme Court decriminalized homosexuality, a little more than a year since the Massachusetts high court created the nation's first same-sex marriage rights, and weeks since California passed a sweeping domestic partnership law, the groups said, "We have every reason to be optimistic."

The statement includes an excerpt from a People magazine interview with the president and Laura Bush, in which Bush said gay couples joined in a civil union "of course" are as much a family as his own.

Still, the renewed focus on more practical matters after a year in which marriage equality grabbed the national spotlight and became a central focus of a presidential election campaign, indicates a retrenchment, said University of Pennsylvania analyst Nathaniel Persily.

"It is quite clear that most Americans attach a certain significance to the word marriage, such that it eclipsed some of their otherwise egalitarian feelings toward gays," Persily said.

Hospital visitation and inheritance rights, by contrast, do not seem to be eclipsed. "The decision to move one step at a time and focus on other areas is a smart strategic choice on their part," Persily said. "We find on most questions of equal rights, Americans are willing to make sure that gays are treated equally with heterosexuals, but when it comes to marriage, people just have an emotional, visceral reaction."

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