On Monday, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit threw out Virginia's ban on same-sex marriage, it did so in language that was direct, forceful, and, until recently, practically unimaginable from a federal appeals court. In the 2-1 decision, the majority concluded that denying same-sex couples the right to marry “prohibits them from participating fully in our society, which is precisely the type of segregation that the Fourteenth Amendment cannot countenance." The U.S. Constitution, in other words, guarantees marriage equality—and should do so, presumably, in all fifty states.

The decision by the Fourth Circuit, in Bostic v. Rainey, might feel like just the latest in a recent unbroken string of judicial victories for marriage rights_._ Since the Supreme Court decision in United States v. Windsor, last June, more than two dozen courts have ruled that state anti-gay marriage provisions are unconstitutional. (Windsor dismantled the Defense of Marriage Act, which had kept the federal government from recognizing even same-sex marriages that were sanctioned by states.) But most of those rulings have come from district courts, the lowest federal level, or state courts. There have only been a few major decisions on the issue at the Court of Appeals level—in the Tenth Circuit, with a pair of rulings, Kitchen v. Herbert and Bishop v. Smith, dealing, respectively, with Utah and Oklahoma, and now in the Fourth Circuit, with Bostic. (There are thirteen circuits in all.) Challenges to their rulings go directly to the Supreme Court.

These circuit-court rulings will now compete for the high court’s attention next term. The Supreme Court is not obligated to take one or the other, and some observers believe that the Justices will wait until there is a conflict between the circuits; so far all the rulings have been in favor of marriage rights. There is even a theoretical possibility that, if every federal appellate circuit court rules in the same way, the Supreme Court will not have to address the issue any further. It will have already decided the matter, with last summer’s Windsor ruling, which the lower courts are all citing in their decisions—and may have created a finality that was not initially anticipated. This is still seen as a highly unlikely outcome, although it is not as unimaginable as it once was. The Supreme Court is likely to want to have the final say on the parameters of any major constitutional shift on marriage.

The Fourth Circuit ruling is distinct in other ways, too, including its geographic reach. The Fourth Circuit covers not only Virginia but West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina (as well as Maryland, which already has gay marriage). (The Tenth Circuit, in addition to Utah and Oklahoma, covers Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, and New Mexico.) The ruling will thus bind all other courts in those states, too, if it becomes final. The attorney general of North Carolina said, after the ruling, that he would no longer defend his state’s anti-gay-marriage law because the Fourth Circuit ruling left him with no credible arguments. South Carolina’s attorney general, however, said that he would continue to defend that state’s ban.

The Virginia case yesterday was also highly symbolic: it is from the same Southern state that gave us the landmark ruling in Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court case from 1967 that put an end to laws against interracial marriage. Loving v. Virginia, as with Windsor since last year, has served as a precedent for much of the pro-gay-marriage litigation.

In the Virginia marriage case, the lead attorneys for the plaintiffs were Ted Olson and David Boies, the team formed by the two opposing counsel in Bush v. Gore who joined forces to battle Proposition 8, California’s same-sex-marriage ban. They brought that case to the Supreme Court after winning it at lower levels, gaining a technical ruling (issued on the same day as Windsor) that restored marriage rights in California, though not beyond—a narrower victory than they had advocated for, but a real one. Now they are hoping that the Virginia case (funded, like the Prop 8 fight, by the American Foundation for Equal Rights, or AFER) is their next best chance to win a landmark Supreme Court marriage decision.

For many years, a competition has been simmering among lawyers and gay-rights organizations about who would get credit for bringing the Supreme Court case that settled the matter of marriage equality nationwide, once and for all. Since last summer, that competition has turned into a race. Olson and Boies, and a lot of other people, thought that they had that case in Prop 8, and said so openly. Now they hope it will be Virginia. James E. Magleby and Peggy A. Tomsic, Salt Lake City attorneys who do much of their work as commercial litigators, have been handling Kitchen, the Utah case, including before the Tenth Circuit Appeal. They are smart, highly skilled lawyers, if not gay-rights legal insiders. It would be an interesting twist if they ended up winning the race.

Meanwhile, the lower courts have been interpreting the Windsor case broadly, and the bragging rights go to Roberta Kaplan, from the law firm Paul Weiss, and the national A.C.L.U., who joined together to represent the plaintiff, a widow named Edith Windsor. But the truth is that each of these victories has built on the other, and none of the contenders for a place in history could have accomplished what they have without the achievements of others.

All sides expect gay-rights proponents will and should ultimately be successful. This change in climate is also evident in the political realm. Senator Rob Portman, a Republican from Ohio, and a supporter of gay marriage, seems to be floating a Presidential run. Vice-President Joe Biden has been proudly proclaiming himself the originator of President Obama's pro-gay-marriage stance. And when Hillary Clinton, in a recent interview on NPR, was questioned about her evolution on gay marriage in a way that suggested her support was calculated, rather than heartfelt, she took offense. (I worked for President Clinton and periodically advise both Clintons on gay-rights issues.)

Monday's Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in the Virginia case seemed to acknowledge the cultural shift in the country while recognizing that not everyone may be ready, when it said, in the concluding paragraph of its decision, "We recognize that same-sex marriage makes some people deeply uncomfortable. However, inertia and apprehension are not legitimate bases for denying same-sex couples due process and equal protection of the laws." It would thus seem that we are in the final stages of the campaign for same-sex marriage.