The Supreme Court’s ruling upholding Proposition 8 is no surprise. Neither is the response from some pathetic gay leaders who continue to act as though Proposition 8 is galvanizing our community as we’d hoped. But instead of continuing to beat our heads against the same wall, it’s time to take a different approach and focus on GLBT family equality.

Our current gay leaders advocate:

• Condemning the California Supreme Court, protesting the decision in the streets of San Francisco, West Hollywood, and Hillcrest, where few will take notice, and avoiding federal courthouses, even though that’s where this issue rightfully belongs.

• Raising money for a 2009 or 2010 ballot measure to amend the California Constitution to legalize same-sex marriage. Yes, this would give GLBT nonprofits money to add staff, but polls show that the 600,000 edge by which Proposition 8 passed has not eviscerated much, if at all.

• Pressuring our allies and friends in the Legislature to condemn the court ruling and pass another meaningless resolution in support of same-sex marriage.

• Holding rallies outside Mormon churches and undermining efforts of progressive Mormons (“Mormons on a Mission”) to change church policy.

• Exhibiting the same intolerance and bigotry towards religious groups that some of them have bestowed upon us.

But none of these reactions will work. Instead, as I said last week, we need to link the issues of same-sex marriage and the rights of children in same-sex unions. Reframing the marriage issue as one of family equality is the way to go now.

This is especially true since, nationally, the road to legalizing same-sex marriage is already paved: States without an initiative process, such as California, are already moving toward marriage and family equality. Six states have already legalized same-sex marriage and New York and New Jersey may be next.

Of course, we also now have President Obama and a Department of Justice headed by folks who believe the Constitution supports gay equality.

So that battle is well on its way. Now we need only strengthen our position by turning our attention to our children. As Attorney Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, rightly notes, federal judges will be more apt to see the inequality of same-sex domestic partnerships through the eyes of the children in such unions.

Further, legal precedent alone demands it.

For example:

• In 1954, when the Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education, a case that made segregating schools illegal, what tipped the Court’s sympathy were studies showing black children tossing away black dolls in favor of white ones because they felt society valued “white” children more.

• In the 1970s, the Supreme Court held that children “born out of wedlock” could not be treated any differently than those born in a traditional marriage.

• In 1994, when voters in California approved Proposition 187, the measure to pluck children of illegal immigrants out of school and place them in youth prisons, the federal court immediately stayed the measure on grounds that equal protection to children of aliens could not be denied. Pyler v. Doe, a Supreme Court decision, had already held that children of illegal aliens could not be stripped of an education.

By analogy, children of domestic partnerships or civil unions are today’s “bastard children.” We need to make this the issue now. Not only will the new administration and many more taxpayers support children’s rights but so will legal precedent.

Think about it. Why should single taxpayers have to pay more to support married folks, either gay or straight?” But their antipathy changes as soon as a child enters the equation. Most people agree that families should get help when raising a child – even those who oppose same-sex marriage. And since denying same-sex couples the right to marry is denying their children the benefits that other children receive, most will agree on the need to legalize gay family rights.