NEW YORK (AP) – Carolyn and Leslie Gabel-Brett are married when they are at their vacation home in Massachusetts, but when they cross the state border to their full-time house in Connecticut, they are suddenly unmarried – at least as far as the law is concerned.

The two women are living in a legal limbo produced by a patchwork of U.S. state laws on same-sex marriage.

As judges in California consider an argument made last week by a male couple that outlawing same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, America’s state-by-state mosaic appears likely to be even more ingrained.

At least seven states will have elections in November to decide whether to change their constitutions to limit marriage to a man and a woman. Those states already have statutes against same-sex marriage and, under federal law, do not have to recognize such marriages performed elsewhere – but an amendment would ensure that a judge could not overturn such rules on the grounds they are unconstitutional.

In other states, lawsuits have been filed on several other fronts of the same-sex marriage issue.

“I can barely keep up myself,” said Toni Broaddus, executive director of the gay rights umbrella group Equality Federation, describing the turmoil across the country over same-sex marriage.

Unlike most countries, the United States does not have a nationwide law regulating marriage, leaving the decision to individual states – similar to other hot-button issues such as capital punishment and assisted suicide.

Only Massachusetts, where the state Supreme Court ruled to allow same-sex marriage in 2003, guarantees the Gabel-Bretts the rights to use the term “marriage,” make medical decisions for each other, inherit each other’s property and file joint state tax returns.

But same-sex marriage opponents were heartened by a recent state Supreme Court ruling that out-of-state couples could not marry in Massachusetts if their own states would not recognize the marriage. That raises questions about neighboring New York and Rhode Island, which do not allow same-sex marriage, but have no laws banning it specifically.

Liberal Connecticut, six other states and Washington, D.C., allow civil unions or statewide domestic registries offering many of the benefits of marriage, including inheritance rights and the ability to file state tax returns together. Under civil union laws, a couple can have their union dissolved, similar to divorce.

Seventeen states changed their constitutions in 2004 to add “protection of marriage” amendments against same-sex marriages. If the seven so far on the ballot this year pass, that will mean nearly half of American states will have such constitutional restrictions.

The amendments are largely being approved in America’s more conservative states, and both sides agree that those upcoming in November will likely pass handily – with same-sex marriage opponents saying they are trying to head off “activist judges” who choose to go against the will of the people.

“In a way, it’s a rebuke to Massachusetts,” said Bob Knight, a leader in the movement to ban same-sex marriage who works with conservative group Concerned Women for America. “You’re not going to do to us what you’ve done to your own people to impose [same-sex marriage] without a vote. Any time you create a counterfeit, you cheapen the real thing.”

Knight and other religious conservatives say homosexuality is morally wrong and allowing same-sex couples to marry only encourages them to remain in a self-destructive lifestyle.

American opposition to same-sex marriage spiked to nearly two to one in a poll conducted in 2004 after the Massachusetts ruling by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, with 82 percent of those opposed citing religious beliefs as the reason for their view. But a Pew poll released last month showed that opposition has settled down significantly since then, with only 51 percent of Americans continuing to oppose same-sex marriage.

Gay and lesbian activists and others argue that allowing same-sex marriage is a sign of equality, a seal of respect for loving relationships and an issue of legal practicality.

“We joke and say that if anything should happen to us we should jump in the car and drive to the border” into Massachusetts where they have the legal right to make medical decisions for each other, Carolyn Gabel-Brett said. The couple chose not to have a civil union in Connecticut, believing that would be a step back from their marriage.

“I find it alarming to think that in this country with its principles of tolerance, that states would move toward codifying discrimination,” Gabel-Brett said.

Amendments seeking to ban same-sex marriage are on the ballot in Idaho, South Dakota, Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, Virginia and Wisconsin, with efforts to hold such referendums underway in other states, including Colorado and Arizona.

The religious conservative group Focus on the Family is confident it can get the 58,000 signatures needed to get a marriage amendment on the ballot in Colorado, said Jim Pfaff, an analyst for the group. He said he would prefer passage of a federal constitutional amendment, but added that since that’s unlikely to happen, “we’re focused on the states.”

Opponents of such amendments say the ballot measures are a ploy by cynical politicians to bring out the vote by religious conservatives more likely to favor Republicans, but Knight said politicians pushing the amendments were following the people’s will.

“I think any politician who gets in the way of the amendment train might as well tie himself to the tracks, because this is a potent issue,” he said,

Gay rights advocates say, meanwhile, that the amendment battles offer an opportunity to challenge assumptions about marriage that most Americans grew up with and to explain the love that same-sex partners have for each other. It’s a chance to educate the public on “who gay and lesbian people are and how their families are like other families,” said Broaddus of the Equality Federation.

“We’ve known for a while that the fight for marriage equality is a long-term fight, not something that we’ll easily win in a couple of years,” she said.