Don't ever say the gays don't mobilize fast. Following recent defeats in New York, Nebraska, and Tennessee, queer activists today kick off a $250,000 newspaper advertising campaign – said to be the largest ever print buy for a gay advocacy issue – that will run large and small, from the New York Times to gay weeklies in Houston. Backed by funding from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Freedom to Marry, and GLAAD, the ads ...

feature photographs of five same-sex couples who have been together as long as 53 years and are endorsed by an array of organizations and individuals, including 11 religious leaders and nine mayors.

"From coast to coast, millions of people and hundreds of organizations are working to protect gay and lesbian families by ending their exclusion from marriage," the ads say. "Along the way, there will be advances and setbacks, but we will not stop until every American family is treated fairly, with dignity and equality under the law."

In wake of setbacks, gay-marriage backers place newspaper ads [AP]