Right now in Kentucky, there's a major marriage-equality showdown happening between the state's anti-equality governor and its pro-equality attorney general, who wants to replace him.
Democrat Steve Beshear is the current governor; he's a career politician who will term out of office in 2015. Attorney General Jack Conway is the first Democrat to declare his intention to win, and the announcement is welcome news to the state's LGBTs.
When a federal court ruled earlier this year that Kentucky's marriage ban violates the U.S. Constitution, Conway agreed with the ruling. In fact, he went even further: He declined to appeal.
But Beshear pressed ahead with an appeal, and in the last week his lawyers filed a startlingly anti-gay brief. In it they claim that marriage equality would suppress heterosexual birth rates, and that it's simply too expensive to obey the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
If victorious, Conway would be Kentucky's first pro-equality governor.
Meanwhile, marriage-equality cases march ahead in numerous other states. In addition to a new case filed just last week in Alabama, high-profile lawyers will appear in court in Virginia and Pennsylvania this week. In Virginia, Ted Olson and David Boies will defend a marriage-equality win from earlier this year. Once they get a ruling, which should come sometime this summer, the case will advance to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Similar cases will reach the court in Utah and Oklahoma at the same time. In those states, Freedom to Marry is currently running new TV ads that show families supporting their gay and lesbian kids. Public support for marriage equality in those states is low compared with the national averages, so this outreach could help foster a climate that is conducive to a pro-equality ruling.
WATCH: