I was interviewed yesterday for a CBS News "The Early Show" piece on same-sex marriage that appeared this morning. With the recent legalization of such marriages in Iowa (by a unanimous Iowa state supreme court) and in Vermont (by the legislature), there is a sense of momentum around the cause of marriage equality. I'm not that optimistic. The politics even of reversing the federal ban on recognition of such marriages is too dangerous even for a Democratic Congressional majority and a Democratic president who know such a ban is wrong. And some two dozen states have bans on the books. so the process of unwinding such bans could take a decade or more, despite public opinion that is shifting in the direction of same-sex marriage.

The CBS producer asked me a good question: what would it take to speed up the process? Having more courts and legislatures in more states legalize such marriages would help, but that's a slow path. For progress, same-sex marriage supporters need to start winning ballot initiative elections and soon. In fact, I wonder if the quickest path to widespread recogntion of same-sex marriage would be to pick a big fight in a key swing state that has the initiative process.