Between March 1990 and June 1990, gay rights groups planning a lawsuit to gain legal marriage were involved in planning for the 1990 Hawaii Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade. As a form of protest, the group proposed that a large group of couples gather at the parade and be married by licensed ministers, before the beginning the lawsuit the next day. Thirty same-sex couples were recruited for the mass ceremony. Rev. Eugene Moore, pastor of the Ke Auenue O Ke Aloha Metropolitan Community Church and Rev. Troy Perry were lined up along with several others to perform the ceremonies. Because it was felt necessary to have legal support before the couples filed for marriage licenses, the mass wedding was scrapped.

Couples involved in the planned gay wedding attempt in Hawaii planned to be united by ordained ministers with traditional vows and exchange of rings.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has attempted to give an impression of personal neutrality on the issue of gay marriage, but an examination of gay marriage facts indicate that he does not approve. The Governor vetoed California's same-sex marriage bill in 2005.

Schwarzenegger explained his action by stating that he believed that the bill was in essence illegal as it would have reversed the voter-backed 2000 definition that only a marriage between a man and a woman is legal in California. As California's gay community continues to fight for marriage, it remains to be seen whether the Governor will make is real stance clear.

In a survey of marriage in Sweden between 1995 and 2002, there were 1,526 gay partnerships registered compared to 280,000 heterosexual couples. Five out of every 1,000 new couples in Sweden are same-sex, and 62% of those are gay male unions.

There is a high rate of divorce among homosexual couples in Sweden. Gay male couples were 50% more likely to divorce within eight years and lesbian couples 167% more likely to divorce than heterosexual couples. In the Netherlands, between April 2001, when gay marriage was legalized, and December 2003 there were 5,751 gay marriages and 63 divorces.

In statistics taken from couples filing cases for gay marriage in America, the couples fighting for the right to marry have been together for an average 10 years.

In all, a same sex wedding provides few of the tax exemptions heterosexual couples are entitled to. As taxes are a state as well as federal issue in the US tax becomes more, rather than less, complicated for married American gay couples.

Although gay marriage is legal in Massachusetts gay couples still must pay their federal taxes as singles. Other taxes from which heterosexual couples are exempt, gay couples are still required to pay: heterosexual spouses can inherit each other's estates estate-tax-free and can give each other any amount tax-free while they are alive while gay married couples are limited to an $11,000 gift every year plus a total of $1 million in gifts over a lifetime. These discrepancies are due to the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

There are ways that same-sex couples can provide for each other in the event of a death. Buying a life insurance policy and assigning it to a partner is considered a gift, so the giver can use the $11,000 annual gift to pay the yearly premiums. Gay spouses can also give some of the equity they have in a house to enable their partner to be a joint-owner, incurring no gift tax if the gift of the equity is diverted through a domestic partnership agreement. Inheritance taxes can be avoided by setting up a charitable remainder trust. Couples should speak to their accountant to explore the options available.

The struggle for same sex unions has gone through many firsts in the last five years. Gay marriage was made legal for the first time in the world in 2001 by the Netherlands. Canada was the first country to agree to marry gay couples without a residency requirement, allowing couples from all nations to formally commit.

Massachusetts was the first state in America to allow gay marriage (and still is the only state). The same-sex marriage bill introduced by the California senate in 2005, though ultimately defeated, was the first time gay marriage legislature had voluntarily been introduced in America without a court order measure.

As gay rights struggles continue many more countries will be added to the lists of firsts for same sex unions.

Gay male sex was criminal in nine states of America until 2003. In Lawrence v. Texas the Supreme Court accepted the argument that if heterosexual couples were allowed to engage in sex that wasn't penis-vaginal, it was discriminatory to ban two men from doing the same. The court found that grounds of moral disapproval were insufficient to criminalize sex acts between two consenting adults.

This argument opened up the issue of gay marriage. Justice Antonin Scalia suggested in his summation that if banning a sex act was discriminatory, the same argument applied to the social act of gay marriage. The New York court found that Lawrence concerned 'private activity,' whereas one of the gay marriage facts was that marriage is an inherently public act.

The struggle for gay marriage has clear parallels to the former interracial marriage ban that was once in place in America. Groups supporting interracial marriage ban talked about the divine law regarding marriage and the immorality and unnatural unions of interracial marriage.

Forty American states, including Massachusetts, once prohibited interracial marriage. Massachusetts banned interracial marriage around 1705, removing the ban in 1843 after a three year debate in government. In 1948, the California Supreme Court was the first state supreme court to declare a ban on interracial marriage unconstitutional. The decision was controversial, with the judgment stating that banning races from intermarrying was an offence against human worth and dignity. At that time, 38 states still forbade interracial marriage. The remaining bans were struck down by the US Supreme Court in 1967.

The struggle for interracial marriage was won on an argument for civil rights, one very similar to arguments used by those striving for a same sex wedding.