OK, not exactly, but now we know why both Edwards and Kerry were so desperate to find a way to remind everyone about it - second only to reminding the public that John Kerry served in Vietnam (how's that working out for you, btw?). Their internal polling must have showed that John Kerry was the type of guy that serious Christians would never vote for, combine that with the Gay Marriage issue as a multiplier that was sure to get those same folks out to the polls and you have a campaign desperate to find some wedge to keep those folks home. It didn't work.

A few random thoughts (this was meant to be a more substantive post, but I got interrupted in the middle of writing it and now several hours later I've lost the thread): I think the "judges" issue was a bigger factor than is being discussed, and the actions of the Massachusetts Supreme Court made it prominent in a lot of people's minds. It wasn't about being anti-Gay as is being pundited around. I have zero data to back this up, so don't yell at me, but I feel the issue of the type of judges that rule over us (and they do rule over us) had a big part to play in Tom Daschle's shuffling off this political coil.

Looking at the county-by-county vote and noting the veritable sea of red contained therein, Democrats are deluding themselves thinking it was all about "Evangelicals" and bigots that did them in. Ain't that many Evangelicals out there, kids. The fact is that by and large, a lot of otherwise ordinary people were motivated to come out - gay marriage might have done it, but please face the fact that just because people aren't ready to accept two men as "married" doesn't mean their bigots or religious nuts or homophobes. Some of the old-line liberal Democrats I have close at hand - people of the ilk that think 9/11 wouldn't have happened had Al Gore been elected (seriously) - are non-plussed, to say the least, at the idea of "homosexual marriage." As David Horowitz says in the piece I attach here (I strongly recommend it be read in full), I think most people would accept "civil unions," (I would) but "marriage?" Not so much. What happened is the backlash that gay bloggers like Eric warned some time ago against.

FrontPage: The Moral Factor in the Election by David Horowitz

Update: Read "Gay Gun-Nut" Jeff's take on the election here.

Update: Don't miss this post above with links supporting the idea that Gay Marriage was NOT the deciding factor.

Update: More here. I should mention that even though it's becoming increasingly clear that the Gay Marriage issue doesn't necessarily explain the election results, there's no reason the Kerry Campaign shouldn't have taken the religious vote seriously enough to attempt (and fail) to keep it home.