I've tried, all right; that's what led to the understanding that it is a waste of my time. Months of work on a marriage-equality activist group built up a lot of public support, and then the whole thing got co-opted by the existing political establishment. All the energy disappeared, the work was wasted, we were nowhere closer to achieving our goals. The wheels continued to turn, but very, very slowly. It was eight more years before marriage equality finally happened. I'm really glad I didn't waste all that time working on activism.