For those within the LGBT community, this truly has been a turbulent semester. Just this month, Maine and Washington both voted on referendums related to gay rights. Washington voted in favor of allowing for the equivalent of civil unions to those in same sex relationships, while Maine voted in favor of a measure that repealed the legislature’s decision to allow for gay marriage. The latter decision, ended what seemed to be a steady march for equality that had started state by state in the Northeast.

This was a particular shock to “the new generation of activists” that much of the media has emphasized as being characteristic of a new movement. On October 11, 2009 thousands of marchers gathered in Washington D.C. to call for complete civil equality from the federal government.

I had the amazing privilege to not just attend this event but also to volunteer. While the media gave scant coverage of this event that consisted of over 200,000 people (according to the police estimates in D.C. that day), the march nevertheless greatly impacted all of those who were involved and anyone who has since been swayed by one of the many videos that have been passed along on facebook and youtube.

I have to admit that I was a skeptic when going to Washington. I thought it was going to be a hoax or some money making scheme. It was neither of these things.

Equality Across America, the organization behind the event, did not turn the march into a fundraiser. I learned watching Sherry Wolf at a rally the day before the march that Equality Across America sought to be an alternative to the Human Rights Campaign, a member’s only group that has mandatory annual dues.

HRC was noticeably absent in the preparations and planning of the march. Once national attention was given to the event however, HRC was quick to cash in on the publicity, calling for a black tie formal complete with a performance by Lady Gaga and a speech by Barack Obama.

During this speech from Obama, I was at the volunteer social across town at a much different type of affair. At the social, everyone gathered around the only television in the room to watch Obama speak.

In his speech, Obama laid out his “beliefs in equality” and explained that he intended to repeal both Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act. Both of these were campaign promises that even today remain unfulfilled. At the social, there was a split in those who still believed that Obama cared about equality for the LGBT community and those who felt he had sold out. I was in the latter.

To put things in perspective, for this year’s election Obama made campaign visits for both the gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia. He made no such visits to Maine, and he did not even express himself as being opposed to proposition 1.

Previous democratic presidents such as Jimmy Carter took stances against state referendums that posed threats to the LGBT community, such as the proposition that is defeated in the Oscar winning film MILK. No such assistance came from Obama.

In response to these failings, a new strategy is emerging. This strategy is national in nature and includes a federal appeal to the Supreme Court. A federal appeal has been made and will be heard by a federal district court out of California, challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act. Only time will tell if this strategy was a good idea, or merely a swift, “too fast, too soon” blunder. After all, it is all but guaranteed that Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia (who both as late as 2005 wanted to uphold state sodomy laws [Lawrence v. Texas]), and John Roberts and Samuel Alito (who are right wing hacks) will be 4 votes against the appeal. Defeating the measure will require participation of all of the left justices, and the ever unpredictable and moderate Kennedy.

This will also be an opportunity for newly appointed Justice Sonia Sotomayor to prove herself as a justice with an inclusive interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment (something she had a bit of hesitancy with on her previous bench on the appellate level).

There is also so much at stake. If the court upholds the Defense of Marriage Act, some legal scholars suggest the unthinkable could occur. Every state that has since guaranteed state marriages to same-sex couples, could be invalidated – turning the clock back on all that we have already worked for. Lamda Legal, the legal fund that worked in Iowa to achieve gay marriage has avoided this strategy. There are just so many risks involved.

Yet, there are reasons for hope – a hope that is not Obama’s to claim. The state of Washington did indeed vote to allow for civil unions – at least one step forward. Additionally, I still hold the hope that my experience at the National Equality March was not an isolated instance.

Looking around me at all the thousands of individuals who felt that equality was deserved, I understood how much there was to gain if our activism was successful. I managed to get my picture made with all kinds of famous people (at least, people I thought to be famous). Yet, the picture I valued the most was the one I got from an African American lesbian couple who were huddled holding each other on the steps of the capital.

I asked if they would pose for a picture and they agreed. I remember being particularly moved by that moment, because previous to all other moments in my life, I had never been in a place in public where such a display of meaningful affection between two beautiful women would have been accepted.

It is this moment that I shared with thousands of other people from all across the United States that I know will remain in the hearts of those who experienced it. This experience of being able to truly express love in public that heterosexuals mainly take for granted made me a different person.

In spite of all the setbacks, knowing that thousands of others like me left the march with this same experience, I can trust that my generation will be the one that will finally break through for equality.