In what is a typical tactic for leftish activist groups, accusations are never laid to rest no matter how much evidence there is to refute them. Accusations can fit on a bumper sticker, the evidence refuting them requires a conversation. Repeat the accusations often enough and you'll simply overwhelm any attempt to provide an anatreptic.

Such is the case with the gay fascist claim that the Mormon church "bought" the passage of Prop 8. The accusation serves two purposes--it maintains the fiction that gay marriage has popular support, and in the best tradition of Rules for Radicals:

RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

The problem so far is that they're no people to go after, which leaves the institution, but Mormons are a better target than Hispanics or blacks, who are the real reason Prop 8 passed so comfortably.

I was fascinated to read a sensible proposal on the legal recognition of same sex relationships in the New York Times by two authors who actually would like to solve the problem.

Linking federal civil unions to guarantees of religious freedom seems a natural way to give the two sides something they would greatly value while heading off a long-term, take-no-prisoners conflict. That should appeal to cooler heads on both sides, and it also ought to appeal to President Obama, who opposes same-sex marriage but has endorsed federal civil unions. A successful template already exists: laws that protect religious conscience in matters pertaining to abortion. These statutes allow Catholic hospitals to refuse to provide abortions, for example. If religious exemptions can be made to work for as vexed a moral issue as abortion, same-sex marriage should be manageable, once reasonable people of good will put their heads together.

Its at very least a tacit recognition that the big worry among religious constituencies is that gay marriage is just another way to drive them from the public sphere. The more frequently various spokespersons pooh-pooh the idea, the more intense the suspicion becomes--I mean its not like these people never lied to us before. By legitimizing the concerns of religious constituencies, there is at least a possibility of creating sustainable public policy.

It won't happen though.

By now you've no doubt heard that Prop 8 was upheld 6-1 by the California Supreme Court, which held that the good people of California have a right to amend their constitution by the initiative process.

The Attorney General's argument (representing the GLBT interest) was essentially that a constitutional process could not be exercised if it conflicted with a prior judicial interpretation of the constitution--judicial interpretation trumps the actual constitution!

Its a pretty reasonable decision, meaning that it was politically safe. How was the Supreme Court going to tell Californians that their will was inferior to that of seven judges? Gays and Lesbians came away with a bone though--Prop 8 won't be applied retroactively, which means that all the marriages performed before Prop 8 are legal.

What's interesting though is why.

Prop 8 was drafted very narrowly by sticking to the definition of marriage rather than getting into the rights associated with it.

I've written that the GLBT made a huge mistake trying to ram this down the throats of Americans with a backdoor judicial process. The cudgel has been stripped from their hands and they are effectively back to a political process--one in which they've trashed the house and the parents are on their way back from the airport.

Having radicalized their own constituency to accept nothing less than full equality with heterosexuals, it could be very tough now to sell what was always a winning argument--gays and lesbians deserve companion rights, short of full equality with traditional marriage.

Maine joins the 31 other states who citizens have rejected same sex marriage by popular vote.

The GLBT alliance's political strategy has been a complete disaster. Any politician running for office is going to have to look at the record and simply walk the other way.

In the aftermath of Maine's rebuff of gay marriage, a gay forum has featured comments "predicting" terrorism if President Obama doesn't intervene to force Americans to accede to the GLBT agenda.

"All is will take is a small group of radical zealots who are willing to kill for their cause," "Fritz" wrote. "This happens in all cases where people are oppressed and lack representation. Our president must wake up and prevent this from happening. Otherwise, we will end up like Israel and Palestine. We will have gay and lesbian people strapping bombs to their chests and blowing up churches."

"Tex" responded, "You say this like it's a bad thing? Maybe a bit of well organized terrorism is just what we need, er, I mean 'civil disobedience.'"

I just have to wonder where these guys have been?

Just this year there have been an unusually high number of fires in Mormon church buildings throughout the U.S., including an historic building in Cambridge, MA. For those unfamiliar with the them, Mormon church buildings are substantial affairs with modern fire suppression systems. About the only way to burn one down is with the 'liberal' use of accelerant.

The Wasilla Bible church was torched by an arsonist, prompting an apology by Gov. Sarah Palin for bringing down the wrath of 'liberals' onto the humble congregation.

You probably didn't hear about any of it, thanks to state media so loath to characterize Christians as anything but intolerant, inbred chicken-pluckers, that they were visibly upset over being forced to cover a particularly hard-to-ignore mass murder by a Muslim fanatic, possibly lending credence to the views of honest-to-God Americans.

Blowing stuff up just makes their situation worse.

Gays need to understand that all the progress they've made to date has come from a public characterization of gays as harmless, sensitive, sharp dressers. Ellen DeGeneres has been an absolute bonanza for Lesbians, who previously had to deal with a public image constructed by the likes of Andrea Dworkin. Yet its the Dworkin model that gays seem to prefer these days.

Good luck with that.

In a major blow to the gay rights movement, the state Senate overwhelmingly killed a bill to legalize same-sex marriage on Wednesday.

After two-and-half hours of passionate debate, the Senate voted the measure down 38-24.

New York now joins a list of 31 other states, most recently Maine, to shoot down gay marriage.

None of the Senate's 30 Republicans voted for the measure.

Of the 32 Democrats, 24 voted for it, eight against.

A perfect record. Everywhere Americans have been given a chance to vote on gay marriage, they've soundly rejected it. Gay marriage is only legal in those states where the courts have simply extended the right by fiat.

The issue of gay marriage aside, the politics is fascinating. In the wake of Prop 8's success in California, the GLBT lobby thought they could blame the loss on the Mormon church, and characterize opposition to gay marriage as a minority position. I'd say losses in liberal states like Maine and New York pretty much destroy that strategy and erase the perception that its just religious kooks who oppose gay marriage.

Nevertheless, there is another element in this saga that is pretty interesting. As news reports in the wake of the Prop 8 victory pointed out, Mormons represented a vanishingly small proportion of the electorate in California, but nevertheless had an impact well beyond their numbers on the basis of intensity, organization and money. Its now looking like they not only defeated gay marriage in California, but nationally as well. Somehow I doubt so many New York State Senators would have voted against it if Prop 8 had failed and gay marriage won the day.

A lot of pressure by a small, highly-motivated group, at the right time and place, can make an enormous difference.

...and brings with her all the assets she employed in making John McCain the President of the United States.

I think all the rich, white, liberal and famous people already voted against Proposition 8 in last year's California referendum. Are there perhaps two or three more that Cindy McCain's endorsement can persuade?

A week ago, gays and lesbians in New York State were growling about how hard they were going to take Harold Ford Jr. down, in his bid to win the Democrat nomination for Hillary Clinton's former Senate Seat.

It was a mistake to call the GLBT snarling chihuahuas. A Chihuahua can actually inflict a nasty bite, gays and lesbians are politically toothless these days.

HONOLULU (AP) -- Hawaii lawmakers declined to vote Friday on a bill that would have allowed same-sex civil unions, effectively doing away with the measure.

State House leaders said a narrow majority of representatives would have voted for civil unions, but they decided to indefinitely postpone a decision on whether to grant gay and lesbian couples the same rights and benefits the state provides to married couples.

Civil union supporters in the crowded House gallery on Friday shouted, "Shame on you!" while opponents cheered.

"It's an election year, and they're more concerned about keeping their seats than doing what's right," said Stephen Nagle of Kaaawa, wearing a rainbow lei in support of civil unions.

Hawaii currently has a Republican governor--the first since 1962. Democrats have controlled the legislature since 1954.

Although Barack Obama threw down on Don't Ask Don't Tell as part of his overall demeanor of defiance during the State of the Union address, its highly unlikely that the political goodwill exists to force the issue.

On a personal note, I can't think of any objections I would have to homosexuals serving in the military, and I don't recall ever hearing a cogent argument about why they shouldn't, except the rather ambiguous statement that it would be "bad for morale". If a gay guy is giving me cover fire, my morale would be great...