Marriage seems to be cropping up a lot lately.

Massachusetts has celebrated yet another anniversary for its legally married same-sex couples, and its non-residency ban has just been lifted.

We’ve got the exciting onset of marriage equality in California, as well as the predictable backlash of a ballot measure to end it.

We’ve had some pretty big celebrity involvement, including the marriage of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi, the wedding of George “Mr. Sulu” Takei and Brad Altman, and Brad “Mr. Jolie” Pitt’s donation of $100,000 to support gay marriage.

Equality NC has recently received numerous requests from people who’ve been legally married in California or Massachusetts, asking about filing lawsuits to get their marriage recognized in North Carolina.

(Please note: ENC is unable to provide any legal advice directly but would instead refer folks to:

* North Carolina Gay Advocacy Legal Alliance (NC GALA)
http://www.ncgala.org/

* Lambda Legal

http://www.lambdalegal.org/about-us/regions/sro.html

Several national groups have advised against marriage lawsuits – you can find more information here:

http://lambdalegal.org/publications/factsheets/make-change-not-lawsuits.html )

Equality NC has begun our own project, Get Married For Equality. We encourage all LGBT and allied couples to celebrate their unions with us – marriage, civil union, or commitment ceremony, legally recognized or not – by registering on our website. You can find more information at: http://equalitync.org/news/marryforequality.

Marriage is a huge symbol, and marriage equality is a bellwether of social change. We’re living in an exciting time in that we can actually see the arc of history as momentum for marriage equality builds.

Today in North Carolina we're still working on holding back an amendment to the state Constitution, but tomorrow ....