But as Kerry straddles the issue, criticizing Bush for proposing a constitutional amendment while advocating for an amendment in his own state constitution, he risks coming off like a phony. Swing voters may not care about the gay marriage issue, but they could find Kerry's political doublespeak distasteful and disingenuous. Recently, Massachusetts Governor Romney publicly criticized Kerry's "confusing positions on gay marriage."

This past weekend, the Boston Globe published a scathing editorial indictment of John Kerry's gay marriage position. "We can understand why Senator John Kerry would like to neutralize gay marriage as an issue in the presidential election," the editorial read. "Kerry is, of course, free to hold a personal belief that marriage is between a man and a woman. Many people share this view, though public attitudes have come so far so fast that broader acceptance is likely. This is precisely why enshrining a separate, discriminatory status for gays among the state's guarantees of rights is so odious."

While the amendment backed by Bush may prove to be an effective issue for galvanizing Bush's conservative base and peeling moderate support away from Democrats, changing the U.S. Constitution is difficult and few believe it has much chance of passage. And to some extent, that helps allay the concerns among gay-rights supporters in Massachusetts.

"The president doesn't have a vote on the constitutional amendment," says Mark Mead, political director of the Log Cabin Republicans, the nation's biggest organization of gays and lesbians in the GOP. "Am I outraged at George Bush? Yes. Do I think he's a compassionate conservative? Doesn't look that way to me. I think the American people will not stand for this eventually. They're not going to stand for amending the Constitution on a transitory social issue."

Still, Mead worries. His concern goes beyond presidential politics to the containment of a bigger societal shift against gay rights. "We understand that there's a potential for backlash here," he says, "and that it is moving very fast -- faster than we ever thought things would move." The damage may come on the presidential level, he said, but it will definitely be a factor in less prominent elections, both at the state and local level.

It's difficult, he suggests, to avoid the conclusion that the push for gay marriage was a big dice roll. "The potential for gain is small," he says, "and the potential for disaster is huge."

Would anyone involved in the same-sex marriage campaign have postponed it, if that were possible? Most in Massachusetts say no -- and a few even find the suggestion offensive. Cindy Turnbull is a lawyer in Springfield, Mass., and she knows one of the seven couples involved with the landmark Goodridge case. Turnbull says that she understands the desire "not to give Bush something helpful."

But at the same time, she says, "I don't think anyone would be saying for any other civil rights issue, 'Gee, isn't it a shame that this is coming up around presidential elections?' People would never utter those words, but for some reason, they seem to be OK talking about gay marriage that way.

"If it weren't for gay marriage," Turnbull says, "it would be for abortion or some other issue. There's always an issue that one group wants to bring up and they use to raise funds or to generate voter motivation."

And so there is in many quarters a sense of resolve, colored by pessimism -- a sense that history sometimes takes two steps forward and one step back. Things will in time be better for the gay community, many say. Gay marriage will be an accepted social norm. Gay relationships and families will be respected by most Americans. Eventually.

Like Ellen Koteen, in the Pioneer Valley, many console themselves that in the long run, however long the backlash lasts, it will be temporary. Still, Koteen says, "whenever emotional antitheses are being generated against who you are, it's scary."

Vickie Henry, co-chair of the Massachusetts Lesbian and Gay Bar Association, seems ready for the backlash. Before the Goodridge decision, she explained, "we couldn't get married. Now [if one of the amendments pass] there's something that expressly says we can't get married. I'm not sure that's really a whole lot worse.

"A year ago here in Massachusetts, there was not even a chance of passing civil unions. Now, because we've asked for marriage, and we've been awarded marriage by the court, it looks like one of the possibilities we could end up with is civil unions. Which would be an advance in Massachusetts over where we have been."

"It's certainly interesting," agrees Matt Coles, director of the Lesbian and Gay Rights Project for the American Civil Liberties Union. "Now you hear so many moderate Democratic and Republican voices saying they're all for civil unions, but that's a new song. It's only being sung, I think, as the possibility of marriage gets more and more real. Domestic partnerships didn't begin to become a mainstream alternative until there was a really hard push for marriage."

"The thing that I always say to myself, over and over again, is that happily -- at least in this country -- we cannot be legislated out of existence," Henry says. "I don't think we're going to be rounded up and put into camps. The worst-case scenario is that we end up right where we started. If our opponents are successful in putting discrimination into the Constitution, it will be more work later to get it overturned. But we will. What choice do we have? We're fighting for our lives. We're fighting for our rights.

"We are moving forward," she says. "I think that we will have civil unions, and I think people will notice when the Commonwealth does not fall into the ocean. We could ultimately end up with more rights than we have right now."

But what if the worst-case scenario comes to pass? What if discrimination is codified in state laws or in the U.S. Constitution, and the result for the foreseeable future is no gay marriage, and no civil recognition of any kind? What if same-sex marriage proves a decisive campaign issue and Bush is reelected?

"Civil rights movements don't get to pick and choose their timing," says Winnie Stachelberg, political director for the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign. "They just get to decide what they make of the issues and the challenges they've been presented with."

Vickie Henry is similarly philosophical. "If there was a backlash," she asks, "will it have been worth it? It depends on who you ask, but I would say: Absolutely, yes. To have the Massachusetts Supreme Court -- the oldest court in the country -- come forward and say that we are equal citizens and we need to be and must be treated equally. To have that start, to have that beginning, was absolutely worth it."

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