From her Baltimore kitchen, Rebecca Murphy is lobbying legislators, crafting signs and making phone calls as she wages a battle to allow gays and lesbians to marry in her state.
The married mother of two doesn't have a personal stake in the fight. Rather, Murphy represents the growing number of people nationwide who support gay rights regardless of their own sexual orientation.
"I have gay and lesbian friends and family who are raising children and creating lives, and they deserve to be treated fairly," she says.
As national polls show a shift in attitudes about same-sex marriage, Murphy's state of Maryland is one of three poised to put the issue to an up-or-down popular vote for the first time next month.
While support has grown, there are still many who oppose allowing gays to marry and are doing their part to strike the measure down. The Rev. Frank Reid and his wife, Marlaa, of Bethel AME Church in Baltimore run workshops for single African-Americans in an effort to encourage strong marriages and discourage sexual behaviors that can lead to HIV/AIDS.
"I do understand and accept that there are other patterns for families," Marlaa Reid says. "However, the basic prescription for marriage, I embrace it as a biblical prescription. A man and a woman."
Her husband is quick to point out that though the Reids support the traditional view of marriage, it "does not mean that we don't love our gay, lesbian and transgender brothers and sisters."
"It means that we don't take our direction from the president, whoever he or she may be. It is a reminder to us that God loves the sinner, but hates the sin," Frank Reid says.
What a difference
Voters have mostly agreed with the Reids' views. Thirty-eight states have passed bans on marriages between people of the same sex, mostly by amending their constitutions to define marriage as the union between a man and a woman.
In the six states -- Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire and New York -- and the District of Columbia where gays and lesbians have won marriage rights, it was because of actions taken by judges or legislators, not voters.
But what a difference an election cycle makes. Four years ago, three states -- Arizona, Florida and California -- joined the list of those with constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage, while Arkansas banned same-sex couples from adopting. This year, Maryland, Maine and Washington could go the other way.
Maine could represent the biggest turnaround.
The state rejected their governor's decision to allow same-sex marriage in 2009, but recent polling suggests a shift.
The Pan Atlantic SMS Group of Portland released a poll October 10 saying "55% of Mainers plan to vote in support of same-sex marriage" and another 1.3% are leaning that way, the Press Herald reported.
Washington and Maryland, meanwhile, are voting on whether to affirm decisions made by their legislatures and supported by their governors.
"The biggest difference going into this election as opposed to the last election is that a majority of Americans now support the freedom to marry, we have a president of the United States that supports the freedom to marry, we have six states and the District of Columbia where gay people can share in the freedom to marry," says Evan Wolfson, founder of Freedom to Marry, a group supporting the right of gays to marry.
A CNN/ORC poll in June found that a majority of Americans support marriage rights for gays and lesbians, reflecting a dramatic shift in public opinion over the past two decades.
The number of Americans who say they have a close friend or family member who is gay or lesbian, meanwhile, has jumped from 49% in 2010 to 60% today, the first time in CNN polling that a majority of Americans have said that. In the 1990s, most Americans said they did not know anyone close to them who was gay.
Drew Tagliabue, the executive director of the New York City chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, says ties with gay people have prompted non-gays to support gay rights causes in increasing numbers.
"When you come at something and you know someone who is gay, it takes the fear out of the issue and makes it clear that it's just a simple matter of equality," he says.
The November votes come as courts are moving to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act, one of the biggest obstacles to gay rights supporters. The divisive act, passed in 1996, bars federal recognition of marriages between people of the same sex and says states cannot be forced to recognize them.
On Thursday, a federal appeals court in New York became the nation's second to strike down the law, saying that it violates the Constitution's equal protection clause.
A federal appeals court in Boston made a similar ruling in May. The appellate court decisions mean the next step is likely to be a review by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Courting minority voters