Victory Lap and the Eventual Overturn of Virginia's Troublesome Marriage Amendment

The Washington Post reports that the Catholic and Evangelical left turned out for the Democrats. They did so for one particular reason. They listened.

Bob Casey, a pro-lifer, was nominated in Pennsylvania. While I do not agree with him on banning abortion, I do agree that it is a horrible procedure and the taking of a life - and so does the Christian left.

Many people got the message that the Iraq War is a life issue. They realized the stark immorality of using Iraqi civilians as cannon fodder in the War on Terror. Many apologists for the GOP still don't get it. They actually believe it moral to stir up action in a third country in hopes of attracting a war with terrorists there rather than here. As I have said before, that's cold blooded murder in the guise of national defense.

The Christian left is not soft on defense. Many of us voted for strong defense Democrats, like Jim Webb. Many of us are also Clark supporters. If the only way to stop the terrorists is to chase them down in large numbers in Pakistan is to invade that region where we all know they are taking refuge (not Iran, as some lying neo-cons are saying), we would support that. We support common sense security measures here, though not unilateral actions by an expansive executive.

The point is people - WE WON!

Bye-bye Rummy!

We also won on social issues, or did not lose as badly. We stopped a radical abortion ban in South Dakota and rejected a gay marriage amendment in Arizona, while losing less badly in the other states it was contested, like Virginia.

By slicing and dicing the Republican base, we make it less likely that they can mobilize the troops for the inevitable call for a constitutional convention or amendment after the Supreme Court overturns the aforesame marriage bans as a violation of federal equal protection rights - and Justice Scalia himself put the handwriting on the wall on that issue in his dissent in the Texas sodomy law case. He stated that, if adult consensual sodomy cannot be regulated there is no justification for not allowing gay marriage on equal protection grounds. For once, I agree with him, although I do not find any justification for regulating consensual adult sodomy. His own words will haunt him, now that the Human Rights Campaign has local plaintiffs for a suit to have those amendments vacated.

Sometimes you win by losing. The "drubbing" the GOP took means it is unlikely that the outrage to the inevitable High Court decision can be turned into the right wing's dream - a constitutional convention to address mandatory school prayer (which is what they seek, in their hearts), abortion, taxes, pornography and their entire agenda. Oh, they'll try, but because the base has been split, they don't have the votes.

We not only won, we won big!