In today's YDN, Alyssa offers an assessment the progress behind and the challenges before the movement for equal rights for all couples in New Haven and beyond: We will win this fight in Connecticut, and we will win it on the federal level as well, but only if we win in New Haven first. Ultimately, the fight for equal rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people will be a failure if we fight our battles only in the legislatures, and not in our neighborhoods, churches, and community centers. In New Haven, it is far easier for us to work directly within the well-traveled channels of elected officials, and challenge them to take principled stands regardless of what their constituents think; we make them heroes for standing up to popular opinion. But we have a rare opportunity, one less exciting and dynamic than the gathering on Tax Day a year ago, but with greater long term potential in both the Connecticut legislature and New Haven's neighborhoods...Worries about coalitions have kept some in New Haven out of this dialogue and this movement for far too long; we should all travel the high road, and travel it together.