TAP: Web Feature: Partisan Paradox. by Matthew Yglesias. November 19, 2003.: "An October USA Today/Gallup Poll showed that just 48 percent of the public believes gay marriages 'will change our society for the worse,' and 50 percent feels the change would either be an improvement or have no effect. Notably, younger Americans -- who are often described as being more culturally conservative than their parents on issues like abortion -- are much more likely to support equal rights for gays and lesbians. In the USA Today poll, for instance, 63 percent of 18 to 29 year olds and 53 percent of 30 to 49 year-olds said that gay marriage would cause no harm or change society for the better. "

Indeed, the political genius of current Republican strategy has been to signal the GOP's agreement with the conservative base's anti-gay agenda without actually doing much of anything about it. Action, after all, would alienate Republican leaders from the American center, which may not be eager to embrace gays and lesbians but isn't necessarily interested in seeing them bashed in the political arena, either. The median American voter thinks -- quite rightly -- that gay marriages will have no real impact on his or her life, and hardly thinks that the government should make them a top priority in a time when the country is facing pressing problems of joblessness, war and terrorism. Nevertheless, electorally critical evangelicals remain obsessed with homosexuality -- a topic that, as libertarian pundit Virginia Postrel recently explained, provides them with a way to distance themselves from popular culture (and therefore enforce religious commitment) without imposing any self-sacrifice.