This NOT a new strategy.  These are new tactics for the same old tired strategy which has lost 33 elections in 31 states.  What we need is a new strategy. 

National polls say 55 percent to 60 percent of Americans support marriage equality, all of the federal and state rights of marriage, just as long as it is not called "marriage." These polls also say that only about 40 percent support same-sex marriage.

Our marriage-only strategy created a tsunami of reaction: the federal Defense of Marriage Act, 45 states passing same-sex marriage bans, 18 of those bans extending to civil unions and domestic partnerships, and 30 of the bans are by constitutional amendments. What a mess! However, before our marriage-only strategy we had a different strategy for achieving marital rights. It worked well, made remarkably steady progress, and had little opposition. Comprehensive domestic partnerships, which are legally indistinguishable from marriage, have rarely faced a significant challenge. And it has rarely lost.

Our original long term strategy for achieving marital rights was to create a parallel and legally equal category, domestic partnerships. Eventually people would say, "It is stupid having two categories doing the same thing. Let's combine them." No tears, just a housekeeping measure. Much less flashy than the current marriage-only strategy but it was working.

More important, comparing the trajectory domestic partnerships was on when the strategy was halted with the continuous defeats and heartache the marriage-only strategy has given us, it is clear that the domestic partnership strategy would have brought us to one, unified category of marital rights for both heterosexuals and LGBT folk much, much sooner.

Our community's unquestioning devotion to the marriage-only strategy, which is only a strategy, not a cause or an ideal, has given our enemies the opportunity to undo our progress. Unfortunately, many activists refuse to even consider the domestic partnership option because they not understanding the difference between a goal and a strategy. These activists falsely believing that comprehensive domestic partnerships is the end game rather than just a step on the road to the end.