The legal battle over same-sex marriage is far from over. Last year, the leaders of major gay rights organizations issued a plea urging people not to make Prop 8 a federal issue. The national and state leaders of these organizations listed their reasons for issuing the plea — the battle must we waged within the states.

A federal judge declared California’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional Wednesday, saying that no legitimate state interest justified treating gay and lesbian couples differently from others and that “moral disapproval” was not enough to save the voter-passed Proposition 8. The California Supreme Court ruled 4 to 3 that gays and lesbians were entitled to marry under the state Constitution in a historic ruling in May 2008. Voters passed Proposition 8 six months later, amending the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.

California gay marriage decision announced today. The decision will be posted online between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., Pacific time, and will be written by Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker. Walker, an appointee of President George H.W. Bush, heard myriad witnesses testify about the history of marriage, the nature of homosexuality and the degree of power gays and lesbians possess in the political system.

Yesterday, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Tauro ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act’s denial of federal rights and benefits to lawfully married Massachusetts couples “offends” the notion of states’ rights as enshrined in the 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The U.S. Supreme Court this week will hear a case from the State of Washington that could decide whether signing a petition for a ballot measure is a private, political act or whether the names of those signers can be made public. Gay rights activists and conservatives are switching sides on the issue of privacy in a case stemming from efforts to release the names of those who signed petitions for Referendum 71, in which traditional-marriage supporters sought to overturn an expanded state domestic-partnership law that grants “everything but marriage” benefits to gay and lesbian couples. The referendum passed at the ballot last fall.

A gay group challenging California’s gay marriage ban failed yesterday to qualify for the 2010 ballot, leaving gay activists mulling a 2012 push and hoping a federal court will overturn the measure before then. Restore Equality 2010 says it fell short of the 695,000 signatures needed by today’s deadline to put the measure on the ballot.

Governor Steve Beshear has been receiving threatening letters ordering him to resign according to his security detachment from the Kentucky State Police. Governor Beshear kept a campaign promise to Kentucky’s gay and lesbian community by issuing an executive order adding equal opportunity employment to all employees and prospective employees.

In a shocking move, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to rule on whether constitutional free-speech rights protected anti-gay protests by members of a Kansas church at funerals for U.S. military members killed in Iraq. The group maintains that God hates homosexuals above all other kinds of “sinners” and that homosexuality should be a capital crime.

U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts today denied a last-minute request by traditional marriage supporters to stop Washington, D.C.’s same-sex marriage law from taking effect. As a “matter of judicial policy,” Roberts said in an opinion that it has been the practice of the U.S. Supreme Court not to intervene in local matters.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision last week, with conservatives in the majority, intervened in the San Francisco district court trial on behalf of the defenders of Proposition 8. The U.S. Supreme Court, in its opinion, decided that they — not homosexuals — faced a hostile public climate of harassment and intimidation. Historically, the U.S. Supreme Court does not get too far ahead of either public opinion or the law in the majority of states.