Here in California, we organized a massive phone banking effort where staff and volunteers made phone calls to New York voters who support marriage equality and connected them directly to their local Republican senators, the very senators that were needed to tip the vote in our favor.

Meanwhile, our ground team, partnered with the Human Rights Campaign and Marriage Equality New York, went to New York to recruit volunteers and execute stop and dial to create pressure on those Republican senators. Stop and dial is an effective technique to essentially stop people out on the street, ask if they support gay marriage and, if they do, connect them directly to their senator's office to express their support.

In three days, our two activists generated 1,000 phone calls to the offices of the three targeted Senators. The result of our phone banking and efforts of our activists, 10,000 calls flooded the offices of NY Republican senators James Alesi, Stephen Saland and Roy McDonald, all of whom had voted against Gay Marriage two years prior. These senators defected to the side of equality despite being tempted by the National Oganization of Marriage's pledge of $1 million to any republican senator who voted against gay marriage.

New York is now the 6th state to offer marriage equality.