OK, now to go off on a limb.
As of today, 51 senators approve gay marriage. That number is only going to go up for two reasons: people know that gay marriage is going to happen, and I expect the Republicans are going to lose seats in 2014 and 2016 (by which point it hopefully won't matter).
Right now as I write this Wikipedia lists 177 representatives who support gay marriage. There are currently 24 Democrats who haven't announced their support of gay marriage. Assuming the Democrats get on board and the President uses his bully pulpit like President L Johnson that number goes to 201. That means to get legislation passed before 2015 we need to get 16 more Republicans to get on board with gay marriage, a hard task. It might happen but I seriously doubt it will. If the Democrats win the election next year there is no turning back, gay marriage will pass both houses.
There are a few states I expect that will change their laws over the next two years before Congress acts. I anticipate Hawaii, Oregon, California, New Mexico, Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and Rhode Island have the potential move closer to marriage equality. If I am right in half of these states the number of states with marriage equality will exist in 16 states.
Gay rights will be a major issue in next year's elections which are extremely important. If the Democrats pick up only 16 seats, which in a previous post I argue is likely, than I will be very surprised if gay marriage is not respected nationwide by 2016. It may not be popular in many states, particularly the south, but neither was the Civil Rights Act! I am extremely optimistic that gay marriage will have equal footing nationwide very soon.
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