(CNN) – A law banning federal recognition of same-sex marriage was struck down as unconstitutional by a federal appeals court Thursday.

The Defense of Marriage Act defines marriage for federal purposes as unions only between a man and woman.

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By Alberto R. Gonzales, Special to CNN

The right to vote is a precious privilege.

It provides the opportunity for every citizen to equally affect the future of our government no matter their last name, ZIP code or skin color.

It was my job as attorney general to protect the sanctity of every vote.

Based on my experience, voter identification laws serve as an effective deterrent to fraudulent voting.

I know there are concerns that such laws discourage voting and hurt minorities.

NAACP president: Voter ID requirements are like Jim Crow voter oppression laws

However, we should not abandon our efforts against voter fraud.

Instead, those concerns are best addressed by vigorous enforcement of existing federal regulations and laws, such as the Voting Rights Act, which provide protections against government actions that adversely affect the voting rights of minorities.

I condemn laws that discriminate based on race, and I support reasonable voter identification laws.

At the end of the day, I want to see more Americans voting, and states able to easily facilitate the right to vote.

The Hispanic vote is important in this election and future elections, and from my view, it is not voter ID laws that will prevent them from voting for President Barack Obama but his economic policies.

I grew up in an impoverished neighborhood where families took care of their own and believed government assistance was only for the most needy - those who could not help themselves.

We were poor but not helpless, We viewed ourselves as proud, self-reliant Americans.

Just like my parents, many Hispanic families today are struggling just to buy food and gas and pay the rent.

Their focus is not yet on the presidential race because they have real concerns that are more pressing.

For this reason, I do not think the polls accurately reflect Hispanic support for Obama and believe that support will drop as we approach the election.

Despite what the polls may say, many of my Hispanic friends –who are not politically active but identify as Republican or Democrat - privately confess their concerns about both men.

In Obama, they see a gifted president who is able to identify with their struggles and give voice to the powerless, someone who has lived the American dream they wish for themselves and their children.

They also see a man who broke his promise to them about immigration reform and someone who champions social policies at odds with religious teaching, such as his recent support for same-sex marriage.

As the election season approaches, more Hispanics will evaluate their economic situation and ask themselves whether they are better off than they were four years ago, and whether the president is capable of delivering on his promises and can be trusted to help them achieve their dreams.

This is potentially good news for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney because it means he still has time.

In Romney, Hispanics tell me they see a successful businessman and experienced chief executive who inspires hope with a positive message, someone who has created jobs and understands the details of economic policy. They see the kind of leader America needs in our current economic plight.

They also see a man who is rich and white, someone incapable of understanding what it is to struggle or to want, and unfamiliar with the pain of racial discrimination.

But it remains to be seen whether Romney can make a personal connection and convince Hispanic voters that he relates to their problems, cares about their future and can create an environment of opportunity for all Americans.

Gonzales says Romney must make personal connection to Hispanics

College students tell me they intend to support  Obama because they view him as a contemporary, someone who is cool and at ease with technology and late-night talk show hosts.

He is a role model and source of excitement.

Other students approaching graduation are not as supportive. They will soon enter the job market with few, if any, job prospects and staggering student debt.

For them, a successful businessman like Romney might succeed in creating jobs where the president has failed.

Hispanics are extraordinarily diverse, and the choice we make on Election Day will be a very personal one.

Like all voters, Hispanics will vote their self-interests and vote for their future.

That choice has the power to elect the next president.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Alberto R. Gonzales.

(CNN) - The California Senate passed Wednesday a bill that would regulate therapies that purport to be able to change a child's sexual orientation - from gay to straight.

"The entire medical community is opposed to these phony therapies," Sen. Ted W. Lieu, D-Torrance, said after passage of Senate Bill 1172, which he introduced.

SB 1172 would prohibit children younger than 18 from undergoing sexual orientation change efforts.

"Being lesbian or gay or bisexual is not a disease or mental disorder for the same reason that being a heterosexual is not a disease or a mental disorder," Lieu said in a news release. "The medical community is unanimous in stating that homosexuality is not a medical condition."

The bill is expected to go to the Assembly for an initial policy review next month.

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Editor's note: As President Barack Obama and GOP candidate Mitt Romney court the Latino vote, CNN takes an in-depth look at this complex and diverse community, what matters most to Latino voters, and how their vote will influence the November elections.

Washington (CNN) - The first Latino president of the United States already has been born.

Henry Cisneros, the former San Antonio mayor who was secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Clinton administration, made the suggestion three years ago in an interview with the Spanish-language news service EFE.

"I don't know if he or she's in elementary school or in law school or is already elected ... to public office, but I believe that that person is already alive, and we're 20 years or less away from having a Latino or Latina president," said Cisneros, whose own path to higher office may have been derailed by personal scandal and who today is executive chairman of CityView, an urban development investment firm.

When the day comes that Cisneros predicted, the man or woman behind the resolute desk in the Oval Office will represent an ever-increasing segment of the population. Latinos (or Hispanics, the official government term) made up 15.5% of the U.S. population in 2010, but by 2050 they're projected to approach 25% of the population.

The American, the online magazine of the American Enterprise Institute, calls the Hispanic electorate a "sleeping giant" yet to wake.

Whether or not Latinos' percentage in the electorate has kept pace with their growth in the population - and the data indicates that at present it has not - it may one day be enough to sway elections from the statehouse to the White House and stops in between.

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By Mark NeJame, CNN Contributor

(CNN) - Ever since the Trayvon Martin case came to national attention, George Zimmerman has been described by some as having racially profiled the 17-year-old before he was shot and killed.

There's a difference of opinion about whether racial profiling was actually involved, but a key question that is often overlooked is the distinction between profiling by a citizen and profiling by a member of law enforcement. That distinction is likely to be crucial in determining the direction the case may go.

As a criminal defense attorney for more than 30 years, I can't even begin to recall how many cases my firm has handled that involved challenging law enforcement officers for the practice of stopping or searching an individual based on what is typically referred to as racial profiling.

Essentially, racial profiling occurs when race, national origin or ethnicity is the primary or sole consideration used by an officer of the law when intervening in a law enforcement capacity. Racial profiling is a form of discrimination that is not only despicable, but also is an illegal and improper basis for any police officer to stop, search, arrest or investigate another person.

The issue of racial profiling has been bandied about often in discussions of Martin's shooting. As with many things concerning the case, much misinformation has circulated.

Zimmerman was not a law enforcement agent. He was a civilian, operating under different legal standards than those applied to the police. Merely because he was a neighborhood watch captain does not attach law enforcement status to him.

Read Mark NeJame's full commentary

(CNN) –The long-running battle between a Tennessee Muslim community and its critics over a new mosque took a dramatic turn with a county judge's ruling that could bring construction to a halt.

"Everyone is really shocked, many people are crying about this," Imam Osama Bahloul, leader of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, said early Wednesday.

"We did exactly what other churches in the county did," he said. "We followed the same process that other churches did. Why did this happen? Some people feel like it is discrimination."

The judge, Chancellor Robert Corlew, ruled Tuesday that plans for the new mosque that had previously been approved by a local planning commission were now "void and of no effect."

He said the planning commission violated state law by not providing proper public notice. The ruling throws the date of the mosque's completion, scheduled for July, up in the air.

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Washington (CNN) – Mariam "Mimi" Bell, a Latina Republican from Colorado, resents the implication that Hispanic voters are somehow negatively affected by the state's new voter identification law.

"It's insulting when they say we're going to disenfranchise the Hispanics," Bell said of the law that requires voters to present an ID such as a driver's license, passport, utility bill or birth certificate to vote. The suggestion, Bell said, is "because we're Hispanics we're inept to get an ID."

The debate over the wave of voter identification laws cropping up in more than 30 states is playing out against the backdrop of the 2012 general election's high-profile fight for Latino voters.

The two presidential candidates hold widely divergent views on the matter.

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"It stigmatizes women's service as not as important as male service," said Col. Ellen Haring, a plaintiff in the case."We're excluded from branches that allow career progression to the highest ranks."

Haring spoke to CNN's Pentagon Correspondent Chris Lawrence for The Situation Room.

By Ruben Navarrette Jr. , CNN Contributor

San Diego (CNN) - In Texas, where voters will go to the polls on Tuesday, politics can be brutal.

Case in point: the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. It's rough and dirty and personal. And, whether it ends Tuesday or continues on to a run-off on July 28, it could blow up all the bridges that Republicans in Texas built over the years to Hispanic voters.

This is because, in the 11th hour, the primary went down a muddy road. That is, if you think that accusing a candidate with a Spanish surname of favoring "amnesty" for illegal immigrants - with no evidence to back it up - is hitting below the belt because it raises questions about divided loyalties and feeds into the perception that all Hispanics favor open borders and unlimited immigration.

No kidding. There are those Americans who are convinced that Hispanics are working behind lines to help Mexico reclaim the Southwest in an elaborate "reconquista."

Read Ruben Navarrette Jr.'s full commentary

by Alicia W. Stewart, CNN

(CNN) - By now, it has been established that Latino voters are a diverse group and a crucial electorate that will help determine the next president of the United States.

But here is what's new to know about the impact of Latino voters: It will be felt in places one might not expect.

"Moving beyond the Southwest and Florida, Latino voters can also influence the election results in 'nontraditional' states like North Carolina, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia, " said Matt Barreto, co-founder of Latino Decisions, a polling firm. "Those states have had substantial growth in the Latino population and among voters, based on our analysis of census data and statewide voter rolls."

Florida-based political analyst Charles Garcia noted earlier this year that in North Carolina, the number of registered Hispanic voters has almost doubled to more than 130,000 since the last presidential election.

"President Obama won North Carolina in 2008 by 14,000 votes," Garcia said. "In 2008 there were 68,000 registered Latino voters, and a whopping 84% of them participated in the election."

Polling experts say this shift will affect the 2012 election.

A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Telemundo poll found 61% of Latino registered voters’ choice for president was Barack Obama, and 27% choose former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Latino voters played a key role in Obama's 2008 win over Republican John McCain. Nationally, Obama won 67% of Hispanic voters, including the battleground state of Florida, with 57% of the Latino vote.

It was only four years earlier that Latino voters in Florida supported President George W. Bush with 56% of the vote in his re-election bid. Nationally, Bush was re-elected with 40% of the  Latino vote.

Republican strategist Ana Navarro suggests that Romney's "campaign needs to wake up and go to sleep every night thinking of the Latino vote"  to win the election.

And as the American demographic changes, David Bositis, a senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, comments that the GOP's traditional voters are "dying off".

The Republican Party understands the need to court Latino voters to win the White House and continues to make outreach efforts.

Demographic changes may be shining a spotlight on the candidates' efforts, but it is the issues that matter.

It comes as no surprise that for Latinos, just as for all Americans, improving the economy is a top concern. But how candidates speak about immigration, even as most Latinos are American citizens,  have shaped conversation and discussion that are informing how Latinos vote. Of particular interest has been support of the DREAM Act, a bill that offers a path to citizenship for some minors who entered the country illegally.

Additionally, as immigration from Mexico has come to a virtual halt, the future of how the Latino vote is discussed will affect how this electorate is viewed.

“The Latino vote has gone from being an ethnic vote, to an immigrant vote and now back to an ethnic vote, " said Gregory Rodriguez, founder of Center for Social Cohesion at Arizona State University. "The end of immigration as we know it is redefining Latinos and redefining the so called Latino vote.”

Read more about the Latino vote:

'Sleeping giant' Latino vote yet to awaken

Election notebook: 'I do my own thing'

Voter ID laws, fraud and Latinos: Discrimination, a 'big deal' or 'insulting?'

Opinion: GOP's problem with Latinos - as big as Texas

Opinion: Why Marco Rubio can't save the GOP

Opinion: Latinos and gay marriage debate