sarah warbelow: that's right. we were trying to have a dual strategy. how do we then marriage equality in states that don't have constitutional amendments, where there are legislatures finally to having conversations. new hampshire, maryland washington state. at the same time, fighting back against constitutional amendments. we were happy -- having an interesting trajectory. disproportionately, as we work the state legislatures, we were finding success. many people have an unrealistic expectation of how quickly legislation moves as a result of those successes. within two state sessions, marriage equality was passing. simultaneously, we had states running in place bans on same-sex couples being able to marry. the only time we had truly effectively prohibited a ban on same-sex couples marrying was in minnesota in 2012. that was the same year in which people voted in maryland and maine, and washington state to affirmatively granted same-sex couples the right to marry. that same year we also lost a constitutional amendment in north carolina. it really was a

this country and backlash that forced changes in the arkansas and indiana laws we are joined by sarah warbelow largest gay civil rights organization. you heard from senn for santorum said this law would have protected a gay business owner from having to do work on something that he finds offensive or discriminatory. would that have been important protection to have? >> on the contrary. legislation would have none dough much thing. it allowed individuals to use their religious beliefs to underline other types of laws that provide protection. not only against gay lesbian bisexual transgender people but against other religious minorities and some instances against african americans and asian americans as well. >> o'donnell: we saw indiana change its law arkansas as well. where is the next fight? >> well, there are over 100 bills that have been introduced in the state legislatures this year attempting to target the lgbt community, in particular, we're going to be turning our vision to states like texas and south carolina that have bills similar to what we saw in indiana already in the works. >> o'

on my far right is sarah warbelow, the leader of a team of lawyers focused on state and local policies and coordinating efforts on lgbt issues. we are going to start with paul. we are going to talk about the cases and look forward at what the case is might mean for the future. paul will take us back to 1972 and baker versus nelson. then he will talk about how he got from baker versus nelson to the defense of marriage act during the clinton administration. mr. smith: it is a long road. a lot of people ask how we get to marriage equality and the reality is we have been working hard for a long time. you want to have a starting point. that is bigger versus nelson in 1972, in which the court was asked to recognize the right of a same-sex couple to marry. they dismissed the appeal. it was a one line rejection of the claim. this was at a time when we were not in the stone age, at least the middle ages of constitutional law. but there was still no extra protection against gender discrimination. there was recognition of a fundamental right to marry but no one in 1970 two would have thought that