To the extent I've followed it, the profile of the people who claim that gay marriage will lead to "backlash" against Democrats is always the same. They're pretty conservative Democrats who aren't talking about reelection of incumbents. They're talking about other conservative Democrats trying to get newly elected.

The undertone of careerism and resentment or rejection of liberal Democrats is always palpable in their assertions. Of course, they're usually only asserting the electorate's supposed deep rejectionism of gay marriage as a shield or spear to voice their own lack of conviction of its legitimacy or necessity. Proposing this lack of conviction to be an electoral virtue, of course.

In short, it's all latent or overt conservative rot and a fealty to social policy cowardice within upper tier Democrats.

The national picture is that Bush won in part, and the Republicans added Senate seats, in November 2004 on a mandate to implement some more social conservatism. It wasn't enough of a mandate to achieve a ban on gay marriage legalization, though it was enough to keep DOMA firmly in place. And it was arguably mostly about abortion rights: it was enough to appoint some more federal judges, who in turn restricted abortion rights somewhat, i.e. the Carthart majority opinion.

The Schiavo affair, probably with help of the summer 2004 FMA debate loosening the ground, blew out the weakening conservative lean of swing voters on social policy in April 2005. Last November's election ended out the socially conservative Republican Senate majority in which the middling socially conservative policy mandate of 2004 was manifested. We are now stuck in neutral, though trend is obviously some amount of liberal mandate after the 2008 election.

(Of course, the other 2004 election mandates in the significant policy areas were some Democratic mandate on economic affairs- manifested in the successful resistance to Social Security "reform"-, and a definite mandate on 'handling terrorism' to Bush. (Which is to kill the Al Qaeda leadership, legalizing it and the means to it by averting eyes from all his actions infringing laws that do not harm Americans directly.) Foreign policy, Iraq/war, and ethics in government were neutral in 2004- The People voted to carry on as before, permitting no new initiatives or termination, until success or selfinflicted collapse and failure of the Republican policies. Of course, it's been all failure.)

If the cons want to get technical about traditional marraige then they would have to revoke legal benefits for straight couples as well because marraige was originally a religious ceremony with no legal benefits attached (of course if they really want to get "traditinal" they would also have to go back to women as property, good luck getting the rest of the country to sign on to that).

I believe what you describe in your Saturday 7:06 is The Patriarchy.

Greenwald thinks that divorce is not traditional and nobody divorced can remarry in a "traditional marriage." This is true in the Roman Catholic church, but it is hardly true in other traditions. Christianity derives from both Jewish and Greco-Roman roots, and both of those traditions did have (and for Jews still do) divorce laws and rituals.

Certainly you might want to speak against an adulterous union that leads to divorce and remarriage, but divorce and remarriage itself is hardly non-traditional.

Well the most conservative non-Catholic American Christians pretty much all claim to accept the Bible as the literal word of God:

http://www.ph.unimelb.edu.au/~jlc/stuff2.html

Jesus says that divorce is always wrong except in cases of infidelity, and this is essentially the only comment he has on the matter.

Looks like never.

I wish pundits had stayed with the "it's the economy stupid" and keep pounding on both Bushs' with that one. Had we stayed on that one-we may not be in the Middle East.

Is it me, Glenn-or does there seeem to be a deliberate plan to dumb down Americans with this crap-sloganeering...

I found MSNBCs' and other msm making fun of Miss South Carolina to be purely hypocritical-as they show butt-crack images of Brittney or expose us to the latest Lohan/Paris idiocy. Who's dumber: the person doing these things-or the msm for giving them airtime?

I feel I need a shower after watching the gutter levels the msm has stooped to. Think I'm going to turn it off-or watch CNN more.

I'm liking them better these days.

"Unwed motherhood (around 30% of all children) is strongly correlated with poverty and inability to marry. Do you think that's a good thing?" -- shooter242

Once again, living, breathing proof of the hypocracy of the values voting block and the sanctimonious nonsense they spew. The same group that would, by law, force every female over the age of 12 carrying a fertilized egg, to give birth, now bithes and complains about the toll of unwed motherhood and their bastard offspring have on our social and economic institutions! It would be funny if it wasnt so typical of how these people think. Let's see...female who aborts the child, bad, very bad. Female who has the child(but is not married)again, bad very bad. For the love of God will you people make up your fucking minds!

"Some men can afford a string of wives, ex-wives, mistresses and the like, and therefore see no harm in indulging themselves. "

It's becoming clearer to me that what is being promoted by McCain et al as 'traditional' is simply Patriarchy, literally the rule of fathers (sexually active, productive, heterosexual males). In an ideal Patriarchy, men compete to have the most sexual partners, and the most offspring. It has been argued, I believe, that the new testament condemnation of adultery/divorce is an implicit critique of Patriarchy (adultery/divorce typically hurt women more than men). I don't know if it's hypocrisy if your core belief is in Patriarchy rather than Christianity. When the two are in conflict, the weaker belief loses out.

terpmaniac, the thing is: 'Conservatives' like that believe they can stop poor people from engaging in sex in the first place. Just punish them enough for any consequences, and they'll stop. Obviously. As if sex weren't one of the few things that poor people have that makes up a little for their lot.

As Ambrose Bierce observes, distance is the only thing the wealthy are willing to let the poor keep a lot of.