My morning routine yesterday wasn’t very remarkable. The alarm went off with its standard annoying noise, my shower was cold (as is usual in a house of 16 interns fighting for precious little warm water), and breakfast was unquestionably mediocre. But just a block away from my bowl of cereal and skim milk, I knew that in an ornate chamber nine individuals would be considering something truly historic.

Growing up gay in a small, conservative town in southeast Texas, I oftentimes felt disconnected from the issues and events of the wider world. For as long as I can remember, I have had the drive to know, to understand, and to be a part of something much larger than my small beginnings. The cases before the Supreme Court are a perfect example of this. Marriage equality is something that not only affects me personally, but is regarded as one of the defining civil rights issues of my generation. Being in DC during this event was truly a stroke of good fortune and I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to be a part of history.

I headed to the steps of the Supreme Court, foolishly thinking that no one would be in line at such an early hour of the morning. How wrong I was. Spanning the length of the sidewalk were some 200+ people waiting for one of the coveted seats in the Supreme Court chamber. My chance of being a part of history, it seemed, looked uncertain. As I worked my way to the end of the line, one woman in the crowd turned to me and said “Don’t get your hopes up for getting a seat.” Luckily, I’m not used to taking advice from strangers, so I soldiered on. At the end of the line, an older lesbian couple from Ohio greeted me and chided my decision not to bring a jacket. Being from Texas, I’m not used to needing any sort of warm clothing in the month of March. Guess I still have a lot to learn about living in DC.

The first 60 or 70 individuals in line, I was told, would be able to sit through the entirety of the oral arguments. The rest of us who were lucky enough to receive a ticket would be rotated into the back portion of the audience seating. After what seemed like ages in the cold and wind, I managed to reach the front of the line and secure a ticket to sit and listen to a brief three-minute portion of the oral arguments in United States v. Windsor. Better to witness a small part of history than none at all!

After securing all of my belongings into a locker inside the building, we were placed in another line to await our seating assignments. The nervous excitement and uncertainty from the crowd was palpable. For myself and for others in the line, this case, challenging the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), had the potential to make a real and lasting influence on our lives. How often do you get the chance to witness your own future in the making?

Luckily, I was given a great seat that had an unobstructed view of the proceedings. During the three minutes I was in the room, Paul Clement, the lawyer defending DOMA on behalf of the so-called Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, was being questioned by Justices Kennedy and Ginsburg, both of whom seemed critical of DOMA’s constitutionality. Commentators and legal analysts have all pointed to Justice Kennedy as the deciding swing vote on the DOMA case, and I couldn’t help but focus on him during much of my preciously brief time in the room. It’s an odd feeling, looking into the face of someone who has the power to make such a difference in your life. As I looked at him and the other justices, I wondered if they knew how much was riding on the case before them. How many future “I do”s would continue to be treated as second-class? Justice Ginsburg summed up current law in a humorous and relevant way: "There are two kinds of marriage: full marriage and the skim-milk marriage."As you can probably tell, I’m not a fan of skim milk in my marriage or my breakfast cereal. I, and millions of other LGBT Americans including Edie Windsor, don’t want watered down rights. I left the courtroom hopeful that at least five of those nine justices would see that this is no different from the “separate but equal” arguments of the past.

As DOMA and Proposition 8 begin to fade back into the recesses of the American public’s attention, I continue to remind myself that legal recognition for same-sex couples is just one piece in the enormous puzzle for equality. While TIME Magazine’s newest cover declares "Gay Marriage Already Won," the sad reality is that LGBT Americans continue to be treated as second-class citizens on a host of issues. Today, in 29 states (including my home state of Texas), you can be legally fired from your job just for living your life openly gay. In 34 states, you can be fired for your gender identity. And for thousands of binational same-sex couples and undocumented LGBT immigrants, the threat of deportation remains a daily source of fear and isolation. These issues may not get the media coverage or viral appeal that marriage equality does, but they nonetheless affect the lives and livelihoods of our friends, families, and neighbors in real ways. Let’s not forget that.

The road to “a more perfect union” will be a long and difficult one. But no matter what happens, I will hold these words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. close to my heart: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” I’m doing my best to make sure that becomes reality sooner rather than later.

This week showed yet again why the Supreme Court is such an important issue in the presidential election. The Court heard oral arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas, which challenges the constitutionality of UT's limited affirmative action plan for undergraduates. A key reason this case is being heard, with opportunities for millions of minority students on the line, is because George W. Bush won the 2004 election.

UT's affirmative action program is modeled on one upheld by the Supreme Court in 2003, in a case called Grutter v. Bollinger. The Court concluded then that public universities have a "compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body" and that the law school's affirmative action plan it approved was narrowly tailored to serve that compelling interest. Grutter was decided 5-4, with Justice O'Connor writing the majority opinion. Progressives breathed a sigh of relief that Justices like Scalia and Thomas didn't carry the day with their opposition to efforts to achieve diversity at public universities.

A year after the Supreme Court had apparently settled the issue, George W. Bush won the 2004 election. He had promised to fill any Supreme Court vacancies with Justices like Scalia and Thomas, and that's exactly what he did in 2005-2006. Justice O'Connor was replaced by Samuel Alito, driving the Court far rightward. Alito has shown the same deep suspicion of diversity efforts as Scalia and Thomas, and nothing he said at oral arguments yesterday suggested he would vote to uphold UT's affirmative action program.

While the far-right Justices may overrule the 2003 precedent overtly or simply "gut it" (as Justice Sotomayor described the opponents' goal), few expect the Court to uphold UT's affirmative action plan.

And all because of who won the presidential election eight years ago.

This year, it is Mitt Romney who is vowing to fill Supreme Court vacancies with Justices like Scalia and Thomas. Don't think for a minute that he doesn't mean it – or that a Romney Court wouldn't affect our lives for decades to come.

UPDATE: Back in March, we turned our attention to the 47th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. In the months since, we’ve crisscrossed the nation and detailed how the fights of 50 years ago are being resurrected today. The Atlantic’s Andrew Cohen yesterday offered his own telling, invoking Dr. King’s famous quote, “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice,” to break down the dangerous myths and machinations of voter suppression, concluding that “[t]hese new laws seek to bend the arc backward again, to take away from people their effective right to vote.” It’s important that we remain vigilant over the next nine weeks, so that on November 6 eligible Americans are able to cast a vote and have it count. In the words of LBJ, “Then with his vote and his voice he is equipped with a very potent weapon to guarantee his own dignity.” Click here and here for more from Andrew Cohen.

March 7, 2012 marked the 47th anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” when voting rights marchers were beaten in their attempt to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.

NAACP President Ben Jealous joined activists from then and now in marking the occasion with another march, saying protest is just as necessary now as it was then.

"We need people to understand that not only is history not very distant, but we stand on the precipice of repeating it," Jealous said.

The NAACP leader said strict voter ID laws that won't allow people to vote without a driver's license or passport are unnecessary and will make it difficult -- and in some cases impossible -- for 5 million people to vote.

"We need to make sure that the principle of one person, one vote, is respected," he said.

Last fall’s The Right to Vote under Attack: The Campaign to Keep Millions of Americans from the Ballot Box, a Right Wing Watch: In Focus report by PFAW Foundation, details how the fights of 50 years ago are being resurrected today. Indeed we’ve seen the strict laws that Jealous mentions pushed in states including Virginia, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Texas, among others, along with the rise of the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Following what happened in Virginia, Washington Post editorialized against strict ID.

Even if Republican lawmakers aren’t personally acquainted with people who don’t carry ID, they exist. And provided they are legally registered to vote, they should be allowed to cast their ballots — without encumbrances manufactured by the state.

Ari Berman wrote in Rolling Stone about what he believes are the political motivations and consequences.

March 2012:

Since the 2010 election, Republicans have waged an unprecedented war on voting, with the unspoken but unmistakable goal of preventing millions of mostly Democratic voters, including students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly, from casting ballots in 2012. More than a dozen states, from Texas to Wisconsin and Florida, have passed laws designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process, whether by requiring birth certificates to register to vote, restricting voter registration drives, curtailing early voting, requiring government-issued IDs to cast a ballot, or disenfranchising ex-felons.

Within days, the crucial battlegrounds of Pennsylvania and Virginia will become the latest GOP states to pass legislation erecting new barriers to voting. If, as expected, the new laws lead to fewer Democrats casting ballots in November, both states could favor Republicans, possibly shifting the balance of power in Congress and denying Barack Obama a second term.

August 2011:

Republicans have long tried to drive Democratic voters away from the polls. "I don't want everybody to vote," the influential conservative activist Paul Weyrich told a gathering of evangelical leaders in 1980. "As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." But since the 2010 election, thanks to a conservative advocacy group founded by Weyrich, the GOP's effort to disrupt voting rights has been more widespread and effective than ever. In a systematic campaign orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council – and funded in part by David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who bankrolled the Tea Party – 38 states introduced legislation this year designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process.

Then there’s Roll Call.

Rock the Vote is one of several dozen organizations, from civil rights groups to Latino, labor and women’s groups, that have launched a multipart campaign to push back against new registration rules for voters that have been enacted in many states. The fight over voter access has triggered state-level lobbying, ballot initiatives and lawsuits, and the issue will likely land before the Supreme Court.

Voting rights activists are responding to a wave of state laws enacted after the 2010 elections, which ushered in GOP majorities in more than two dozen state legislatures. Voting rights advocates have struggled to gain traction amid public indifference and more visible collective bargaining fights, but they are starting to win attention at the Justice Department and on Capitol Hill.

However voter ID is resolved, it’s clear that it’s an issue of national concern, not one isolated to a few states.

Or even international. Jealous and the NAACP have put the issue before the United Nations Human Rights Council. Click here to read their report, Defending Democracy: Confronting Modern Barriers to Voting Rights in America.

In a ruling last week hailed by voting rights advocates, US District Judge Gregg Costa temporarily enjoined Texas Election Code provisions restricting voter registration, including those implemented by HB 2194, which has ALEC ties in author Larry Taylor and sponsor Mike Jackson.

Citing the Federalist Papers, Judge Costa wrote:

Broad-based participation in the political process is crucial to governmental legitimacy and the proper functioning of our constitutional system. […] Voter registration drives have played a vital role in increasing participation in the political process. […] Texas now imposes more burdensome regulations on those engaging in third-party voter registration than the vast majority of, if not all, other states. […] History demonstrates the importance of allowing Americans the freedom to promote voter registration throughout the nation.

Michael Slater, Project Vote, Executive Director:

This case is about making sure that voter registration drives, which are the foundation of our democracy, can operate without undue burdens. At this time when millions of eligible Texans are still not registered to vote, our focus should be to help them become voters. Instead, the Texas election code sets up a system that punishes voter registration drives for helping community members get access to voting.

A full trial will determine whether the provisions in question violate the National Voter Registration Act, and Attorney General Greg Abbott has appealed Costa’s injunction. Texas also remains entangled in a heated voter ID fight.

In the meantime, click here for more information, and be sure to check out The Right to Vote under Attack: The Campaign to Keep Millions of Americans from the Ballot Box a Right Wing Watch: In Focus report by PFAW Foundation.