The opposite occurred in the vast majority of cases -- people challenged gay marriage bans and won in court. And many states legalized same-sex marriage simply by virtue of being within a federal circuit that had ruled on the issue.

Right, what I was trying to get at was the Minnesota case isn't that different. They just didn't have the law being challenged in a federal court. In other cases, the law was changed and then it was taken to court. It's not like the courts just decided to make a ruling out of the blue.