The gay "issue" did not lose the election for John Kerry. Your quote: "The party - and party members - have pushed extreme gay rights issues up the noses of conservative Christians the past several years. Gay marriages being the big hot issue."

The Dems did not want gay marriages, John Kerry did not support it, Pres. Clinton and most Dems voted with GOP for DOMA, and the eleven state initiatives were not put on the ballot by gay activists, but by Rove surrogates, hoping to rile up the base. Rep. Barney Frank was furious with Mayor Gavin of SF for grandstanding on the gay marriage issue last summer, knowing that there would be a backlash against all gay folk.

There was no clamoring of hundreds of gay couples in Ohio for marriage, or any of the other ten states with initiatives, except maybe a few in Oregon. Most of us gay people were appalled when the Mass. Supreme Court made that decision last year, seeing it as a perfect gift to the GOP and Rove as a wedge issue.

Believe me, there is NO consensus in the gay community regarding gay marriage, and most of the gay people I've met in my fifty plus years as a gay hardworking, taxpaying circumspect man would be perfectly happy with civil unions, as would I, if I had a lover. As a single and celibate gay man who volunteered at Kerry HQ on Holly and Bay St. I am as disappointed as you that Bush stole the vote again (now that's a REAL issue you should blog about, like Keith Olberman is doing.)

But what a cheap shot at blaming all gay people for the selfish and minority agenda of a few lucky gay couples who INSIST on gay marriage in SF, Mass. and NY, mostly. They should be so lucky that they at least found a partner in life. I agree that the state should get out of the marriage issue completely, and marriage should remain a church issue, and if some gay couple feels it should be "blessed by some priest or rabbi," let them work it out in their own churches.