gay marraige means the end of religious liberty? how many non-right wing extremists/religious right members believe such a thing? it is sheer lunacy.

if gay marraige exists, it in no way impedes heterosexual couples from getting married in the usual fashion, and from anyone in the country from practicing their religious beliefs.

this kind of absurd talk should be looked on as the lunacy and extremism it is, no matter the source.

You say americans are tiring of the focus on gay issues? You say they have lost interest in it? Oh, my gosh, if that is true, then they MIGHT demand that the politicians focus on things like populist economics, such as taxing the rich, universal healthcare, and immigration flooding the labor supply and thereby depressing wages.

And if THAT happens, then rich investors fatwallets will soon have skinny wallets instead. And you know we can't have that.

So what is the fakeLeft (e.g., the Dems, PBS, NPR, Air America, Alternet, etc) and the Right (e.g., GOP, talk radio, Wall St Journal, etc) going to do about this? You guys need to find another really juicy social-issues distraction. Otherwise all the rich investors will have to put off their yatch orders.

C'mon, you can find something good. I recommend that the Fakeleft Thought Leaders (like the salon editors) go on a retreat-vacation with the Rightwing Thought Leaders (Rush, etc), and do some serious brainstorming. Do your best! THe fate of plutocrat fortunes everywhere rests on you!

That we deserve the same rights as everyone else is such a no-brainer, it's hard to feel the joy over the so-called progress this article is obviously trying encourage. "Guess what? A fraction of the populace is a bit more sure you gays are human!" Am I supposed to cheer that?

When I see an article announcing an end to the ban on gays in the military, or that gays have won the legal right to marriage (which we deserve. I'm sick if this "civil union" soundbyte bullshit; a civil union is a marriage), then I'll celebrate real progress.

Listen, that little pic on the graphic equating guns with homophobia is exactly what has allowed Democrats to be cordoned off by the NRA, effectively, for the past 12 years.

Do you not realize the damage that has been done to populism, anti-corporatism, reproductive rights, democratic principles, and true power for the people, by the benighted anti-gun mouthpieces of the Democratic Party? Shit, folks, the NRA made mincemeat of John Kerry. Why? His goddamned votes in the Senate on guns!

See if you can follow this reasoning:

If you are pro-choice, you are not going to get fundamentalist votes. But respecting a woman's right to choose her reproductive destiny outweighs that objection.

If you are pro gay and lesbian rights, you are not going to get fundamentalist votes. But respecting the rights of others to live as they wish in peace outweighs that objection.

If you are pro separation of church and state, you are not going to get fundamentalist votes, but the dire consequences of oligarchy outweigh the objection.

See a pattern?

It is possible to take on three good causes, and many more, without isolating anyone other than fundamentalists.

Where Democrats and Liberals have gone terribly wrong is by allowing them to assemble their coalition.

Listen kids, it's important:

Gun owners have been driven from the Democratic Party. Yet, a lot of them are sick to death of the religious hokem issuing out of Republican Party. Trust me, gun owners can can be separated from the religious nuts as easily as one may pry a ripe pistachio from the husk. All it takes is a little fucking thought on the part of Democrats. Listen to Howard Dean. Listen to Nicole Para of California.

How does one win elections? One builds coalitions. How does one build these? By prying good people out of the coalitions they are in and getting them into your's, that's how.

Democrats, we need to win this election. I think we will. But if we use the power gained to shit on gun owners, we are going to get our asses kicked down the road. It is about time we began the joyful process of triangulating the dominionists out of power. The first step in this easy maneuver is to pry the gun owners out of their hands and into ours.

VMC,

Having lost four people to gun violence--my grandfather, my mother, a second cousin, and a dear friend--excuse me if I don't jump on your bandwagon to woo gun owners.

The level of gun ownership in the US leads directly to a level of violence and death that would quite simply be impossible without guns.

Opposing the NRA on moral grounds makes perfect sense to this Democrat.

"she [Paccione] rallied a mostly retired audience by demonizing the record of her opponent and President Bush. "

No. She denounced them. There is a difference there. One that matters:

Musgrave demonizes gays

Paccione denounces Musgrave's homophobia

Check out this new CNN headline:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/02/haggard.allegations/index.html

"...[Eric Eidsness] objected outright to the suggestion that the federal or state government should pass constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage. "I will lock and load to fight a federal government [that] will interfere with my private family decision-making and personal decisions," he said, "whether it's two people who have the choice of partners, or the right of a woman to choose, even though I have a problem with the morality of abortion." He was expressing a Western ethos, born of the plains and taken to the mountains, a worldview that an increasing number of Coloradans appear to embrace..."

Coloradans were fiercely independent minded long before 2006. It's just that the socially conservative imports from Orange County California and Texas have in recent years skewed and eventually overshadowed native Colorado's live-and-let-live-dammit attitudes. I'm pleased as punch to read that Colorado is finding itself again.

A.k.a., Redneckistan it still plays pretty strong. In NC-13 that mutard Vernon Robinson's ads are all about how Brad Miller paid Illegal Mexicans to smuggle homosexual terrorists into the US to force your virgin daughters to have abortions on burning American flags. Other than in Chapel Hill, people in NC-13 who are openly gay are risking overt attack. I mean I went to a Japanese steak house recently and one of the men at the table talked openly about being in the Klan. I think Wake county supports the entire Jesus Fish car applique industry all on its own. So maybe this is really just about the usual gang of Republushits lying to you so that the news hears whatever it is they want to hear.