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strangers, it's offensive and it does cut very deep," he said. "...It hurts more than any physical pain I've experienced in my life."
• The Human Rights Campaign says only three states -- North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana -- do not have legal challenges pending to same-sex marriage bans. Spokesman Charles Joughin said the bulk of the active cases followed last year's U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down a provision of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that prevented legally married same-sex couples from receiving a range of federal benefits.
• The court, last June, also left in place a trial court's decision striking down California's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Joughin said judges that have handed down decisions since then generally have referenced at least one of those cases. He said it was only a matter of time "before all of these discriminatory bans are struck down."
• Allison Mendel, an attorney for the couples in the Alaska case, agreed the U.S. Supreme Court decisions "opened the floodgates" for challenges around the country. She was an attorney involved in the case over employee benefits, filed in 1999 -- on the heels of the voter-approved constitutional ban -- and decided in 2005. She said they wouldn't have won an attack on the constitution back then.
• But she said times have changed, attitudes have changed, and the U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing for federal benefits for married gay couples made "the more disconcerting and peculiar" the idea of being recognized as married for one purpose but not another.
• Matt Hamby and Chris Shelden, the lead plaintiffs in Alaska's same-sex marriage case, said they are encouraged by what they're seeing in courts across the country.
• Shelden, 44, said Alaska was heralded for the progressive nature of its constitution at statehood. The 1998 amendment defining marriage as being between one man and one woman "set us way back," he said.
• "I think Alaskans are ready for this," Shelden said.
• Lin Davis, who was a plaintiff in the lawsuit over state benefits with her now-wife, Maureen Longworth, said she is allowing herself to be excited and to believe the way will be cleared for same-sex marriage to be made legal nationwide. The women, who have been together since 1988, were married in California in 2008.
• Davis said it has been a long haul but she sees the discrimination "falling apart."
• "People have come up to us, especially in the last year, and said, 'I didn't really get it. I didn't understand what you guys were fighting for, and now I get it and I'm so happy for you.' It's been really magnificent," she said, adding later: "You kind of grow up feeling like you're just not part of the society, that you're outlaws and things don't apply to you at all, but now it's very magnificent."

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