Dan Hawes, the head organizer for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, agrees that it makes sense to seek even limited legal protections in states where gay people have none, but disagrees that fighting for marriage has detracted from that work.

"It's not that these fights are mutually exclusive of each other, so that's why we don't think it makes sense to negotiate against ourselves," Hawes said.

State Sen. Ed Murray, a gay Democrat who led the three-year push to introduce and expand Washington's domestic partnership laws, said he had little support from national organizations that thought he was settling for less than full equality. Murray says he still regards marriage as the ultimate goal, but has no regrets about taking an incremental approach.

"We knew we had families who needed immediate help and wanted to give relief to families who needed it while building support in the Legislature on the way to marriage," he said.