Harold Meyerson, Washington Post
"...the amendment is being offered today simply because it will help the scare campaign hasten more right-wing evangelicals to the polls this fall. For, as the right tells the tale, what gay-marriage advocates are seeking is not simply the right to have the state sanction such marriages but the right to close down churches that don't. According to Gary Bauer, 'churches will be pressured to either abandon the Scriptures or lose their tax-exempt status if they refuse to 'marry' homosexuals.'
The zeal and single-mindedness with which the Bush campaign is pursuing this goal is best understood as a consequence of Bush's failure to even win, or much less hold, more moderate voters.
The Republicans' campaign is all about scapegoating John Kerry for the ills of modernity. It's about exploiting homophobia, provincialism and cultural insecurity. Or, as they put it, values."
