State governments deciding is what led to federal Supreme Court action.

The states-as-testing-grounds concept has always felt pretty reasonable. Some will make objectively bad choices, but the right choices will eventually will themselves out.

The folks fighting for gay rights had to go state-to-state because there was no traction in federal legislature to get changes made.

That's the big-government position. You can be in favor of a particular issue without subscribing to this view.

I suppose technically it could be worse -- he could take Ron Paul's position of forcibly exempting the states from having to respect guaranteed basic rights (Ron Paul has campaigned on literally rolling back that part of the Fourteenth Amendment).