SIX MONTHS AFTER GAYS AND LESBIANS began tying the knot in Massachusetts, American voters responded with a crushing blow, approving, in eleven states, constitutional amendments outlawing same-sex marriage. The honeymoon— in case you hadn't noticed—is over. The new year will soon see a new flock of law review articles on the subject, assessing this latest chapter of what Justice Scalia calls our “kulturkampf,” a struggle that seems bound to include the Bush Administration's push for a proposed amendment to the federal Constitution banning same-sex marriage and at least twenty new lawsuits in el- even states seeking to allow the same. In preparation for these events, I decided to take a brief look at the issues through the lens of state and local governance. What I found was an array of overlapping interests that will pit cities against their home states, states against the federal government, and force Americans once more to assess the true value of secular marriage.