Would you rather

Well, I live in Texas and that is the law of the land here.

It's a hard choice but I might pick the latter, but only because it can serve as a "gateway" to gaining nondiscrimination protections. If you establish a right to same-sex marriage, it becomes almost indefensible to allow discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and can lead to a cascade effect where protections are eventually codified by either the legislature (or, more than likely, the courts).

Sure, the inverse could be true, but I feel "marriage" for gays is a harder pill to swallow for more people than nondiscrimination protections for employment, housing, etc. If you have the bitter pill first, the rest should be easier to attain.

 

I don't think I'd consider living in a place where an employer could fire me because of my sexuality and the law says it's okay - I honestly think that's crazy. On the other hand, I have no interest in the institution of marriage, so I can live without same-sex marriage being legal.

It's kind of like asking whether I would rather live in Germany - a country with anti-discrimination laws but no same-sex marriage, or Texas - a place where anti-discrimination laws do not exist and same-sex marriage only exists because the Supreme Court forced it nationwide (with several states still trying to challenge the decision - Lone Star state included). It's kind of a no-brainer for me.

I live in a place with both though.

 

I'd rather live where protections exist without same-sex marriage, as is currently the situation in Australia and a number of other advanced countries. Employment and housing are so much more tangible than marriage; I'm much more comfortable knowing I'll not be arbitrarily refused housing or prevented from pursuing a career than I would be not having any of those guarantees, but having marriage instead. In any case, imagine trying to marry without being to hold down a job or actually find a house to live in with your partner. The ability to do those things is a little more fundamentally important, I think, though that isn't to disparage the value of marriage.

Employment and housing are signs of a more accepting society than one which has marriage only, especially given those jurisdictions which lack the former but have the latter tend to be those in which same-sex marriage is a result of judicial fiat. I'd much rather live somewhere where the legislature is reflective of a liberal population and the courts powerless than somewhere where the legislature reflects a malicious people, tempered only by the courts.

Funnily enough, Australian polls show a much higher level of support for same-sex marriage than US polls, though we don't have it and they do. Few politicians in Australia would dare suggest curtailing the employment and housing rights of LGBT people, which began to be protected at a national level from around the '90s. While same-sex marriage may be guaranteed in the United States, the bread-and-butter protections of housing and employment are far from universal. Many US state and federal politicians are totally disinterested in, or actively opposed to, better anti-discrimination laws for LGBT people. Even the lack of same-sex marriage in Australia was made less problematic by a tranche of federal laws in 2007 which gave same-sex relationships the same financial and legal benefits of marriage. That situation was not present in most of those US states without marriage equality prior to this year. I would much prefer the Australian scenario to that of a US state like Texas. Marriage absent everything else is rather shallow.

Marriage equality is a very nice thing to have. But to have it in isolation, without other legal protections, is a tiny bit like having a roof without a house.

 

I would definitely pick the discrimination bans over marriage equality--and I'm married.