The activists, politicians, and social trends that led to 2012’s gay marriage victories.

Meet Faygele ben Miriam, the radical activist “beyond the leading edge” of the same-sex marriage fight.

On being gay in the military, three years before Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell:

A vast majority of those interviewed had been interrogated at least once, and what they described was nearly the same. They said those under suspicion of homosexuality suffer bright lights in their eyes and sometimes handcuffs on their wrists, warnings that their parents will be informed or their hometown newspapers called, threats that their stripes will be torn off and they will pushed through the gates of the base before a jeering crowd.

For years, homosexuals have, for the most part, been politically apathetic. Rarely did a candidate stir their enthusiasm; when homosexuals did vote, many of the more affluent ones tended to go Republican. But now the gay and lesbian community appears to be united for the first time in a Presidential race behind a single candidate -- Bill Clinton. And the money is pouring into the Clinton campaign -- $2 million so far from identifiably gay sources, according to Democratic Party estimates. "The gay community is the new Jewish community," says Rahm Emanuel, the Clinton campaign's national finance director. "It's highly politicized, with fundamental health and civil rights concerns. And it contributes money. All that makes for a potent political force, indeed."

The rise and fall of NAMBLA (North American Man Boy Love Association), from its 1970s founding as a splinter group within the gay rights movement to its current incarnation as the most reviled organization in America.

In 1920, Harvard University officials suspected that some students were gay. So they kicked them all out.