Also available on the Windows Store, on the Windows Phone Marketplace: , and on the HP TouchPad:
FAQ:
What is this? This is an interactive map showing the
legality of same-sex (gay) marriage and civil unions in the United States.
How can I find more information about a state? Click on the state to get a timeline of important events regarding same-sex marriage law.
I'm having some trouble telling the colors apart. Click on a category in the legend to have those states flash briefly.
What's a cartogram? A cartogram is a kind of map that shows states
roughly in proportion to their population, and so it's more representative
of how many people in the US are living under which laws. In this case,
I based the cartogram
on this Wikipedia cartogram of the 2008 election. Ideally the cartogram would
change based on what year we're showing to keep up with population. Also note
that small states are slightly overrepresented since every state gets at least
3 electoral votes.
What's the deal with California? California (and some other states, including Oregon) has civil unions, but marriage is against the constitution. I went with the green color instead of the dark red to emphasize that
same-sex couples do have some rights, which seems more important than the fact
that marriage is off limits for now.
How did you determine the difference between "Civil unions" and "Civil unions with some rights included in marriage"? I mostly relied on the determination made by the Human Rights Campaign - here's a PDF map of the states that currently recognize same-sex marriage and civil unions.
Where can I find more information about interstate relationship recognition, hospital visitation laws, etc.? The Human Rights Campaign maintains a number of maps covering these issues.
How does the map work? I'm using the HTML Canvas to dynamically color the map. The map itself was adapted from this Wikipedia map, and the clickable regions were taken from that same page, saving me a lot of time and trouble.
Note that Internet Explorer does not natively support the HTML Canvas - I'm
using the ExplorerCanvas to support it.
Why is it so slow in Internet Explorer? See above - the ExplorerCanvas
is great (I originally didn't think it would be possible to support Internet Explorer) but since it has to translate the Canvas stuff into VML stuff, it's slow. Sorry! Try it in Firefox or Safari or Chrome instead to get the full experience.
The labels are all in the wrong place - what's up? Try hitting Shift+Reload or Shift+Refresh to reload the images.
Are the source files available? Yes - aside from the Javascript on this page, the other files are marriagedata.js, which contains all of the same-sex marriage data, and mapdata.js which contains most of the drawing logic. I apologize upfront for
the ugly hacks therein :-)
How can I contact you? Just email me at greg@gregstoll.com.
, and on the HP TouchPad: 
