"Let's examine the claim that traditional marriage lacks support in the court of public opinion," James Dobson writes in an excellent piece for CNN.com. "As it always does when conservative issues are being debated, the liberal press produced a series of trumped-up polls indicating the issue was of no interest nationally. However, there was another 'poll' that the media completely ignored. In fact, there were 19 of them. They represented the 19 states in which voters overwhelmingly defined marriage as being between a man and a woman." Though these states lie disproportionately within the Bible Belt, Michigan, Hawaii, and Oregon also have passed measures affirming traditional marriage. Even in Massachusetts, arguably the most liberal of the fifty states, "gay marriage" proponents are feverishly working to stop a ballot question on the subject from appearing before voters.

Dobson notes that the media largely ignored news of the twentieth state, Alabama, affirming marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman, even as it played up a failure in the U.S. Senate to pass a constitutional amendment defending marriage as marriage, i.e., one man, one woman committing to live as husband and wife. "A search of the database Nexis revealed that not one reference to this dramatic vote in Alabama was published in the print versions of The New York Times or Washington Post," Dobson writes. "There was virtually no mention of the story in other national newspapers. Yet, each of them devoted considerable coverage to the Senate's defeat of the Marriage Protection Amendment."

"Not one state has chosen by popular vote to permit marriages between homosexuals," Dobson notes. "Support for the family has been affirmed in every instance." Yet, journalists describe the issue as divisive (it's hard to think of a more unifying issue), ignore the many defeats of homosexual activists, and highlight a lonesome failure of pro-marriage supporters in the U.S. Senate. One can't wish public opinion away. Many, with printing presses and broadcast studios, can.

Excellent post - and great article from Dobson.

For anyone who thinks that the "gay marriage" debate is merely about values, think again.

The battle over whether to recognize same-sex "marriages" and whether to ban them is no minor squabble between bigots and progressives. There are few issues more important.

As Anthony Picarello, president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, points out:

"Once you change the definition of marriage, you don't change one law, you change thousands of laws."

(For more coverage of this issue, including the Becket Fund's recent Religious Liberty and Marriage Conference that brought together ten of the nation's top First Amendment scholars and practitioners - left, right, and center - with a wide range of views on the merits of same-sex marriage, click here.)

As a reluctant resident of the Republic of Massachusetts, it always amazes me how out of whack the relationship between the citizenry and the state's power structure seems to be. All it takes is a few well placed liberals at the top and the state of the State is chaos.

This applies to the topic at hand where under qualified appointed sycophant judges run lockstep with the left to re-define marriage to mean ANY-sex. While at the same time they get the clandestine support of a very liberal legislature that views this issue as the third rail and don’t want to have to deal with it when the time comes.

Point is, every pro same-sex contingent in the state is fighting this decision coming down to a referendum as they know the populace of Mass. is not as crazy and liberal as they are and it will loose.

asdf, any day now the court should be coming out with their decision about the constitutionality of the gay marriage ballot question. I'm betting the court will make sure the question never gets to the people.

Because they know if will be a loser for them. God forbid our liberal, weak, incompetent judiciary and legislature allow the people to have a say. But, what do the great unwashed know? Good thing we have them to show us the way.

You heard it here first: the minute it becomes legal, islamist sympathizers will develop a scheme to "marry" their terrorist buddies so they can obtain US passports.