Walter Dellinger suspects New York's marriage law will have effects beyond the state:
Does the New York Legislature's action change the calculus on how the Supreme Court may ultimately rule on whether same-sex couples in more conservative states have a constitutional right to marry? I would think it might. One of the greatest influences on any culture is the "normative power of the actual" (a phrase I once heard from the late Yale Law Professor Charles L. Black, Jr.). The more common gay marriage becomes, the more hollow the defenses offered by states responding to constitutional challenges by gay couples wanting to marry will sound.
The Dish 