No.

The decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in Goodridge did not cost John Kerry the presidential election.

Although this editorial from USA Today doesn't use that argument, the thrust is the same. (I didn't make that one up -- I've actually seen that as an argument against the California ruling. Seriously.) I've seen the same approach in posts by Chris Crain, B. Daniel Blatt, any number of newspapers editorials, all of which have the same cast: we support equal marriage rights for same-sec couples, but. . . . And the message winds up being "Be afraid. Be very afraid."

Because the basis of contemporary conservatism is fear, I guess -- be afraid of terrorists, be afraid of gays, be afraid of Muslims, be afraid of immigrants (and notice how in some quarters it's become not "illegal immigrants," but just "immigrants"), be afraid of everyone who's not just like you. It's been an effective electoral strategy for the Republicans, but it's based on demagoguery and I'm a little impatient to see it coming from the left. (I know, Crain and Blatt can hardly be considered "the left," but neither of them comes close to Donald Wildmon or James Dobson in terms of wild-eyed radical "conservatism.") And I have seen similar argumentn from the left, and it's symptomatic of something that worries me: too many people seem to have internalized the baseline of the right-wing agenda, which is that what we really need to be afraid of is their disapproval.

It's an authoritarian, patriarchal position, and, as you may have noticed, I don't respond well to authority.