Writing at Slate, Paul Freedman argues in The Gay Marriage Myth that
terrorism, not "moral values" (and, in particular, not gay
marriage) elected Bush:
The evidence that having a gay-marriage ban on the ballot increased voter turnout is spotty. Marriage-ban states did see higher turnout than states without such measures. They also saw higher increases in turnout compared with four years ago. But these differences are relatively small.
BoifromTroy also picks this up and adds his two cents, suggesting that liberal Democrats are trying to blame gays for their loss rather than their selection of a lousy candidate (making gays, as he puts it, "the new Ralph Nader"), while conservative Republicans just want to blame gays.
There's some truth that the ambiguous "values" exit poll question is being spun mercilessly by both sides (hey, I would have said "moral values" were important, too!). But the fact that the Democrats are so quick to scapegoat us should be a warning sign to the "one party's all we need" partisans.
The much bigger issue is the triumph of the statewide
gay-marriage-banning initiatives, which swept to victory even in
liberal, Kerry-voting Oregon, and the widespread antipathy it
reveals toward gay marriage �?? regardless of the issue's arguable
role in Kerry's ("The president and I have the same position,
fundamentally, on gay marriage. We do") defeat.
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