“Despite my fears, there were no clashes between protesters and police: In fact, the anti-Bush protests were surprisingly small and unenergetic compared to the last British protests I witnessed, back in October 2002.

“But — and here’s the catch — the reason for the comparative quiet was that Bush and Blair surrendered the streets of London to the radicals. The original plan for the visit contemplated that Bush would drive in a royal coach down the Mall from Buckingham Palace to Whitehall. It contemplated an address to Members of Parliament. Tens of thousands of cheering schoolchildren waving British and American flags would also have been nice …

“By agreeing to let the President be bottled up inside the palace, the trip’s planners reduced the risk of confrontations — but only by broadcasting to the British public their tacit acknowledgment that the visit was unpopular and unwelcome.

“By eliminating from the president’s schedule events with any touch of spontaneity or public contact, the trip planners made the president look as if he could not or would not engage with ordinary British people. Unless you see it, you can hardly believe the incredible feebleness of the American communication effort in the UK. The US ambassador is nowhere to be seen, and nobody else seems to have the mission to speak up for this administration and this president. The cocooning of the president has demoralized even those who ought to be America’s friends.”

Frum should tell it to his old colleague Karl Rove, whose election strategy clearly does not include TV footage of Bush confronting protesters in the streets.

Minneapolis-based syndicated columnist and blogger James Lileks (“the Bleat”) rips the “ignorant” producers at ABC’s “Nightline” for skipping over Bush’s big foreign policy speech in London in favor of the Michael Jackson pedophilia melee last Thursday. Citing a “Nightline” electronic newsletter to its viewing audience saying that “the staff was split” about which story to cover, Lileks is incredulous:

“You know what? Michael Moore is right. There are many Americans who are ignorant of the world around them. And they’re all TV news producers. Two big bombs in Istanbul, and what’s the big story of the day? Following around a pervy slab of albino Play-Doh as he turns himself into the police. I was stunned to discover last [Thursday] night that Nightline not only covered the Jackson case in detail, but bumped coverage of the Whitehall speech, which was the most important speech since the Iraq campaign began and arguably the most important speech of the war, period.

“Nightline, supposedly the Thinking Person’s Late Night Show, was split about whether a repudiation of 50 years of foreign policy was slightly more important than the arrest of a washed-up, crotch-grabbing yee-hee! squeaking nutball who was probably the horrid pedophile everyone already thought he was.

“The question is whether this reflects the mood of the country, or whether it reflects the mood of our Olympian betters who hand down the news from their lofty aeries. I think it’s the latter. I hope it’s the latter. Of course Jackson is an item of interest, but it’s a below-the-fold story. It’s an artifact of the noisy empty 90s, the Jerry Springer era, the time when the networks sought out the people pasted to their sofas shoveling in Doritos and watching hapless fools throw folding chairs at their ex-lovers. Watching the [networks] fall over themselves covering Jackson makes you suspect that they yearn for those days, because they are profoundly ambivalent about the conflict in which we are engaged.

“They fear Islamic terrorism, but it’s an abstract fear now. Their distaste of Bush is much more tangible and immediate; it’s part of the atmosphere in the newsroom. This is his war, not theirs. If it is a war at all.”

In an early salvo in what is certain to be a crucial debate over whether Bush’s invasion of Iraq has actually made terrorism worse, Lileks blasts war critics as spineless appeasers prepared to sell out America and Israel.

“‘It’s going to take another attack to convince the fence-sitters’: I hear this all the time. I don’t think that’s the case. I think the next attack on American soil will jolt those who’ve moved on, who’ve forgotten the aching, clammy dread we all felt after 9/11. But others will believe that we brought it on ourselves. You already read it around the web — the bombings in Turkey were a response to Britain’s assistance for toppling Saddam; what did we expect? In other words: if we fight back, we get what we deserve. If we do not fight back, and we are attacked again, you can blame it on the crimes for which we have not yet sufficiently atoned. The only proper posture for the West is supine. Curl up and let them kick until they’re spent. Give them Israel and New York and perhaps they’ll go away.

“This is either going to end on their terms, or ours. Which would you prefer?”

For his part, Gen. Tommy Franks, who retired in August 2003 after commanding U.S. forces during the invasion of Iraq, takes a darker view of another catastrophic attack on U.S. soil. According to NewsMax.com, a right-wing news site based in Palm Beach, Fla., Franks says such an attack could result in the U.S. government being dissolved in favor of a military state. (NewsMax quotes from an interview with Franks in the Dec. issue of Cigar Aficionado magazine.)

“Gen. Tommy Franks says that if the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government …

“Discussing the hypothetical dangers posed to the U.S. in the wake of Sept. 11, Franks said that ‘the worst thing that could happen’ is if terrorists acquire and then use a biological, chemical or nuclear weapon that inflicts heavy casualties.

“If that happens, Franks said, ‘… the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we’ve seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy.’ Franks then offered ‘in a practical sense’ what he thinks would happen in the aftermath of such an attack.

“‘It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world — it may be in the United States of America — that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important.’”

Gen. Franks divines such sinister intentions in Saddam’s anti-American speeches:

“‘I, for one, begin with intent … There is no question that Saddam Hussein had intent to do harm to the Western alliance and to the United States of America. That intent is confirmed in a great many of his speeches, his commentary, the words that have come out of the Iraqi regime over the last dozen or so years. So we have intent.”

But perhaps because of the missing WMD, the general’s rhetoric and logic get all tangled up when it comes to Saddam’s capacity to carry out attacks:

“‘If we know for sure … that a regime has intent to do harm to this country, and if we have something beyond a reasonable doubt that this particular regime may have the wherewithal with which to execute the intent, what are our actions and orders as leaders in this country?’”

In the annals of clear and inspiring battle cries, “We have something beyond a reasonable doubt that a particular regime may have the wherewithal to strike” is not among the finalists.

Rummy Inc.
In Monday’s Wall Street Journal, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld saluted Congress for its passage of the 2004 Defense Authorization Act:

“While news from Iraq, Afghanistan and other fronts in the war on terror dominate the headlines, here at home progress is being made on another important front: the critical work of military transformation. Today, President Bush will sign into law landmark legislation that will help bring the Defense Department out of the industrial age, and into the information age.”

In the spirit of the Bush administration’s self-professed corporate style of governing, Rumsfeld explained the benefits of the Department of Defense overhaul like a true CEO. There will be streamlined labor negotiations:

“The bill … authorizes national-level bargaining authority, so the DoD can negotiate with unions at the national level, instead of renegotiating the same issue with 1,300 different union locals.”

And some sort of environmental benefit:

“The legislation will also clarify key portions of two environmental laws. Our military must protect the nation while preserving our environmental heritage. These reforms will allow us to train our forces, while maintaining the department’s high standard of environmental stewardship.”

And downsizing:

“This legislation is an important step forward on the road to transforming the department. Already, we have reduced management and headquarters staffs by 11 percent and streamlined the budget and acquisition processes by eliminating hundreds of pages of unnecessary rules and self-imposed red tape.”

All of which Rumsfeld capped off with some of his special clarifying syntax (normally reserved for press conferences):

“But this [legislation] is only a step. Transforming is not an event. There is no moment at which the DoD moves from being untransformed to being ‘transformed.’”

Hey, baby, want to go back to my pad, drink some wine and commit spiritual suicide?
In last Saturday’s New York Times, columnist David Brooks argued that conservatives should embrace gay marriage because encouraging marriage, whether for gays or straights, will help stop society’s decline into immoral, egotistical “contingency.” This is familiar conservative high-moral-sermon territory, but more than a few readers may have choked on their coffee when they read Brooks’ weird lead:

“Anybody who has several sexual partners in a year is committing spiritual suicide. He or she is ripping the veil from all that is private and delicate in oneself, and pulverizing it in an assembly line of selfish sensations.”

Brooks did not say whether those who have had several sexual partners in a year and a half are also committing spiritual suicide.

Spank me, please (or at least buy my doll)
Like an impetuous child in an elevator, right-of-Attila shock shrew Ann Coulter delights in wildly pressing all the hot little buttons just to see what will happen. This habit got her exiled from the “respectable” right: the über-conservative National Review Online dropped her weekly column from its site in late 2001 and after she wrote (and they published) a notorious column in which she called for the U.S. to “invade [Muslim] countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”

But even if she’s regarded by mainstream conservatives as a self-promoting freak, Coulter continues to be a major player on the far right. Her “Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right” was a runaway No. 1 bestseller, with more than 400,000 copies in print.

In her latest column for right-wing clearinghouse Townhall.com, Coulter is in classic form, flailing at the Democratic presidential candidates for shamelessly exploiting personal tragedy and suddenly discovering their Jewishness.

“The Democrats have discovered a surprise campaign issue: It turns out that several of them have had a death in the family. Not only that, but many Democrats have cracker-barrel humble origins stories and a Jew or lesbian in the family. Dick Gephardt’s campaign platform is that his father was a milkman, his son almost died and his daughter is a lesbian. Vote for me!…

“Howard Dean talks about his brother Charlie’s murder at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. Bizarrely, after working on the failed George McGovern campaign, Charlie Dean went to Indochina in 1974 to witness the ravages of the war he had opposed. Not long after he arrived, the apparently ungrateful communists captured and killed him. ‘Hey fellas! I’m on your s– CLUNK!’…

“In addition to having a number of family deaths among them, the Democrats’ other big idea — too nuanced for a bumper sticker — is that many of them have Jewish ancestry. There’s Joe Lieberman: Always Jewish. Wesley Clark: Found Out His Father Was Jewish in College. John Kerry: Jewish Since He Began Presidential Fund-Raising. Howard Dean: Married to a Jew. Al Sharpton: Circumcised. Even Hillary Clinton claimed to have unearthed some evidence that she was a Jew — along with the long lost evidence that she was a Yankees fan. And that, boys and girls, is how the Jews survived thousands of years of persecution: by being susceptible to pandering …”

This last line is not the obvious anti-Semitic slur it initially appears to be, but a less obvious one. It’s Coulter’s ironic put-down of Democrats, whose pandering she contrasts with the true suffering of Jews. In Coulter’s mind, it seems, you can’t be a “real” Jew and a Democrat — a weird, convoluted position that creates a whole new category of partisan anti-Semitism. But lest someone accuse Coulter of this, she immediately stakes out her pro-Jewish bona fides by making the absurd claim that the evil Democrats — who until the current Bush administration were always more pro-Israel than Republicans, and continue to be staunchly pro-Sharon — are planning to sell out Israel to the terrorists:

“The Democrats’ urge to assert a Jewish heritage is designed to disguise the fact that the Democrats would allow the state of Israel to perish as Palestinian suicide bombers slaughter Jewish women and children. Their humble-origins claptrap is designed to disguise the fact that liberals think ordinary people are racist scum. Their perverse desire to discuss the deaths and near-deaths of their children is designed to disguise the fact that they support the killing of more than a million unborn children every year. (Oh, by the way, what did their milkman and mill worker fathers think about abortion?)”

Having gotten that borderline-psychotic screed off her chest, Coulter turns to flogging her newly expanded line of personal merchandise. Just in time for the holiday season, it’s the Ann Coulter “talking action figure,” whose advertisement gets the final word on the page:

“Amuse your conservative friends and annoy your liberal neighbors with the brand new Ann Coulter Talking Action Figure. This incredibly lifelike action figure looks just like the beautiful Ann Coulter, and best of all… it sounds like Ann, too! This highly collectible doll comes in a display box with information highlighting Ann’s unique contributions to America’s political discourse. If you can’t get enough Ann Coulter, you’ll want to order the Ann Coulter Talking Action Figure today!”

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Read more of “Right Hook,” Salon’s weekly roundup of conservative commentary and analysis here.

But Sheldon and his brethren are not afraid. They say they’ve got God, the president and the Republican Party on their side. While gay-rights activists hailed the Massachusetts ruling as an opportunity for gay couples to make the same commitments and enjoy the same rights as everyone else, activists on the religious right — and their allies in the Republican Party — began work to turn their defeat in Massachusetts into a victory in the presidential election next November.

With a large majority of voters opposed to gay marriage, the right sees in the issue a wedge they can use to separate Democratic candidates from voters otherwise inclined to support them. None of the major Democratic contenders actually supports gay marriage — they all back at least a state’s right to offer “civil unions” to gay partners — but the right is confident that it’s got a winning issue regardless.

“All of the Democrats have favored counterfeiting marriage in one way or another,” said Bill Murray, a spokesman for conservative Family Research Council. “Any candidate who wants to receive the votes of pro-family Americans will have to be ready and willing to mount an unwavering and unapologetic defense of marriage.”

The White House issued a statement making just such a defense Tuesday, although it stopped short of explicitly endorsing the anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment that religious groups are pushing. Democrats speculated that Bush is holding his fire for the time being, hoping that his underlings can mount a full-scale attack on the “gay agenda” while he stays above the fray, clinging to whatever remains of his “compassionate conservative” campaign theme. Bush, a spokeswoman for former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said Monday, doesn’t want “to get his hands dirty.”

Activists on the religious right feel no need for hesitation.

Members of the Christian Coalition of America are already working to build support in the House of Representatives for a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage nationwide. Representatives of the Traditional Values Coalition are working with Republicans to introduce an even more stringent amendment in the Senate. And Democrats are bracing for an anti-gay onslaught to come — if not directly from Bush, then from those who do his bidding — as Republicans seek to peel moderate voters away from Democratic candidates.

The coming year is going to be all “about gay marriage,” former Democratic Sen. Max Cleland told Salon Tuesday. Cleland, a war hero who lost his seat in the Senate to a Republican smear campaign that painted him soft on terrorism, predicted that Republicans will use the gay marriage issue to “trash” the Democrats running for president. “It’ll be slime and defend, as it always is,” he said. “And it will be the ugliest political campaign, aboveboard and below board, in the history of the country.”

With its 4-3 decision Tuesday, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that the Massachusetts Constitution prohibited the Commonwealth from denying homosexual couples the right to wed. The majority explained that the Commonwealth’s granting of marriage licenses, and its recognition of marriage more generally, is a governmental function like many others — the provision of a benefit that cannot constitutionally be offered to one group of people but not another unless “an impartial lawmaker could logically believe that the classification would serve a legitimate public purpose that transcends the harm to the members of the disadvantaged class.”

The majority concluded that no “impartial lawmaker” could reach such a conclusion. In defending its marriage laws against a challenge brought by seven gay couples, attorneys for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts argued that allowing only heterosexual marriage serves three legitimate governmental goals: It provides a “favorable setting for procreation,” it ensures the “optimal” setting for raising children, and it preserves limited state and private resources. The majority rejected each of these arguments as well as a fourth pressed by several religious and conservative groups that joined the case — that allowing gay marriage would undermine, trivialize or destroy the institution of marriage.

The majority dismissed the latter argument in language that mirrored the human dignity theme that Justice Anthony Kennedy used — and Justice Antonin Scalia later mocked — in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June overturning Texas’ sodomy laws. “Recognizing the right of an individual to marry a person of the same sex,” the Massachusetts majority wrote, “will not diminish the validity or dignity of opposite-sex marriage, any more than recognizing the right of an individual to marry a person of a different race devalues the marriage of a person who marries someone of her own race. If anything, extending civil marriage to same-sex couples reinforces the importance of marriage to individuals and communities. That same-sex couples are willing to embrace marriage’s solemn obligations of exclusivity, mutual support, and commitment to one another is a testament to the enduring place of marriage in our laws and in the human spirit.”

The three dissenting justices wrote three separate dissenting opinions. They argued that the majority was ignoring history and usurping the right of the Legislature to define marriage. And, they argued, existing law doesn’t discriminate at all. Homosexuals are free to marry just like anyone else, they said, so long as they marry someone of the opposite sex. Dissenting Justice Francis X. Spina wrote: “All individuals, with certain exceptions not relevant here, are free to marry. Whether an individual chooses not to marry because of sexual orientation or any other reason should be of no concern to the court.”

Because the Massachusetts decision is based on the court’s interpretation of the Massachusetts Constitution, it cannot be reviewed or reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court; each state’s highest court is the final arbiter of the meaning of its constitution. Nor can the Massachusetts Legislature reverse the decision by changing Massachusetts law; as in the federal system, the Massachusetts Constitution trumps other Massachusetts laws.

Thus, the only way for Massachusetts to alter the decision is to begin the two-year process of amending its own constitution — a step that Republican Gov. Mitt Romney endorsed Tuesday. In theory, the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which Congress approved overwhelmingly and Bill Clinton signed in 1996, would allow other states to ignore gay marriages recognized in Massachusetts. But the Defense of Marriage Act raises serious constitutional questions and might not withstand judicial review if challenged — particularly in light of the relatively gay-friendly precedent set by the Supreme Court in the Texas sodomy case.

Even before the Massachusetts decision came down, Republicans were planning their response — a constitutional amendment that would prohibit any state from recognizing gay marriage. In a memorandum distributed in July, Senate Republican leaders said that Republicans should strike quickly on the gay marriage issue. “When same-sex marriage is legalized in Massachusetts, thousands of homosexual couples from in and out of that Commonwealth will rush to marry,” the memorandum said. “Any later attempts to ‘react’ to the growth of same-sex marriages will then be construed as an effort to deprive those homosexual couples of their legal status.”

The memorandum predicted that homosexual activists would flock to Massachusetts to marry, then fan out across the country in order to bring lawsuits challenging other states’ laws when those states refused to honor their marriages. Evan Wolfson, the leader of the Freedom to Marry project, discredited predictions of such concerted action. He said that, in the wake of the Massachusetts decision, gay couples will do what straight couples have done all along. “They will interact with other people who will have to ask themselves, ‘Am I going to discriminate against this married couple of treat them as they are?’” Wolfson said. “Many businesses and many states will do the right thing. Others will discriminate, and married couples will see a patchwork of reactions. If they encounter discrimination, that will have to work itself out.”

The Massachusetts ruling followed by just months a similar ruling by the highest court in Ontario, Canada. Indeed, the Massachusetts majority quoted the ruling in its own opinion. In the United States, the Massachusetts decision makes that state the first one to recognize gay marriage. Dean signed a civil union bill into law while serving as governor — and then had to wear a bulletproof vest during campaign stops shortly after doing so. Courts in Hawaii and Alaska have held that those states cannot deny marriage rights to homosexuals, but state constitutional amendments subsequently reversed those rulings. A lawsuit similar to the Massachusetts case is now pending in New Jersey.

Wolfson hailed the Massachusetts decision as a major victory for gay couples. “It means that families, including couples with kids, will be able to take on the protections and responsibility of marriage and have the security and support that civil marriage means,” he said.

On the right, the decision drew criticism from virtually every prominent Republican, including Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Sen. Rick Santorum, who said that “every civilization since the beginning of man has recognized the need to protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”

For the Republicans, the good news from Massachusetts is that they’ve still got time to get started on their political response. The Massachusetts court said it would give the Legislature 180 days to respond to the ruling before it would order the first gay marriage licenses issued.

Conservative Christians say they will use that time to push hard for a federal constitutional amendment. Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America, said Tuesday that her group is working closely with Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave of Colorado to build support for the anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment she has introduced in the House of Representatives. Combs said the amendment is necessary to prevent liberal courts from imposing upon Americans an institution that is “not biblical and not the way our founding fathers intended the courts to go.”

Meanwhile, Sheldon said his Traditional Values Coalition is working closely with Republican staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee to craft a Senate version of the amendment. He said he hoped such an amendment would be introduced in the coming days — likely by Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback or Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith, both Republicans. Sheldon said the Massachusetts decision will force elected officials and candidates throughout the nation to have “come to Jesus” discussions about morality, and that his group and others would make sure that gay marriage is a “front-burner” issue in the 2004 presidential campaigns. “The horses are out of the stalls, and the race has begun,” he said.

The question, though, is just how far George W. Bush will go to embrace the anti-gay message. The White House issued a brief statement by the president Tuesday in which he condemned the Massachusetts decision as violating “a sacred institution between a man and a woman.” And while the statement indicated that Bush would work with “congressional leaders and others to do what is legally necessary to defend the sanctity of marriage,” it stopped short of endorsing the only thing that Bush really can do — work for passage of the constitutional amendment.

“You’re going to see Bush torn in a couple of different directions on this thing,” said a spokesman for one Democratic presidential candidate. “The Republicans are going to enjoy watching Democrats squirm on this. But by the same token, how does this fit into Bush’s desire to come off as a centrist in the general election next year? It’s hard to see him making a big deal about this, but you can see his surrogates doing the dirty work for him.”

Democratic National Committee spokesman Tony Welch called on Bush to “tell the Republican Party that hate and vilification are off limits in this campaign,” but he wasn’t optimistic that Bush would listen. “Do we know they’re going to use this? You bet,” Welch said. “But we’re going to point out every time what the Republican goal is, and that’s to divide America.”

Despite the political war to come, some gay-rights leaders expressed optimism Tuesday that an apocalypse can be averted. Wolfson said the Massachusetts decision will give Americans a chance to see that the world doesn’t end when gay people marry. “The country will see that the sky doesn’t fall when gay couples take on this commitment,” Wolfson said. “People will say the sky is falling, but people with common sense will see that it really isn’t.”

Still, Wolfson said, that won’t stop Republicans from attempting to make political gains from the issue. “If the right wing has anything to do with this, they’ll try to make this an issue in the presidential race,” he said. “The right wing is not just anti-marriage for gay people, they’re against gay people period. If we were asking for oxygen, they’d be against it.”

Salon senior writer Eric Boehlert contributed to this story.

“While we are certainly relieved that the court stopped short of granting marriage licenses to the homosexual couples demanding them, it is inexcusable for this court to force the state legislature to ‘fix’ its state constitution to make it comport with the pro-homosexual agenda of 4 court justices.

“This is THE wake-up call for both the American public and our elected officials. If we do not amend the Massachusetts State Constitution so that it explicitly protects marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and if we do not amend the U.S. Constitution with a federal marriage amendment that will protect marriage on the federal level, we will lose marriage in this nation.

“Marriage is about more than tax credits and other financial benefits. It is about preserving the best environment for raising children and the safest, healthiest living situation for adults. Without strong marriages as our bedrock, our nation will suffer a devastating blow.

“We must amend the Constitution if we are to stop a tyrannical judiciary from redefining marriage to the point of extinction.”

Not all conservatives are decrying the Massachusetts ruling. Openly gay pundit Andrew Sullivan waxes triumphant on his Web site, the Daily Dish: “THANK GOD ALMIGHTY, WE ARE FREE AT LAST.” The typically prolix Sullivan chooses to let the court opinion speak largely for itself:

“In one state, gay people have become equal citizens under the law:

“‘Marriage is a vital social institution. The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support; it brings stability to our society. For those who choose to marry, and for their children, marriage provides an abundance of legal, financial, and social benefits. In return it imposes weighty legal, financial, and social obligations. The question before us is whether, consistent with the Massachusetts Constitution, the Commonwealth may deny the protections, benefits, and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who wish to marry. We conclude that it may not. The Massachusetts Constitution affirms the dignity and equality of all individuals. It forbids the creation of second-class citizens. In reaching our conclusion we have given full deference to the arguments made by the Commonwealth. But it has failed to identify any constitutionally adequate reason for denying civil marriage to same-sex couples.’

“Freedom in America takes another exhilarating step.”

James Taranto, editor of the Wall Street Journal’s OpinionJournal, whacks the court’s ruling that Massachusetts’ marriage law was unconstitutional by invoking his own parents’ wedding:

“In June, when the U.S. Supreme Court held in Lawrence v. Texas that laws banning consensual sodomy were unconstitutional, Justice Antonin Scalia warned in his dissent that the decision “leaves on pretty shaky grounds state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples.” And indeed, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, cites Lawrence right off the bat, in the second paragraph of a 41-page majority opinion.

“We just hope this ruling has a grandfather clause. It was in Massachusetts that our parents — a man and a woman, each a different sex from the other — got married some 40 years ago. If Massachusetts marriage law was unconstitutional, it stands to reason that our parents’ marriage is a nullity, and all those readers who’ve sent us e-mails calling us a bastard are actually on to something.”

In the National Review Online’s “Corner” forum, contributing editor John Derbyshire used the Massachusetts ruling to unburden himself of the following burning questions:

“If ‘gay marriage’ is legalized, will prisoners be able to marry their cell mates? If not, why not?
In many jurisdictions, a marriage can be annulled if it has not been consummated. What, exactly, constitutes ‘consummation’ of a gay marriage?”

Meanwhile, over at the self-proclaimed “Conservative News Forum” of Free Republic.com, a right-wing echo chamber that gained notoriety in the late ’90s for its vicious attacks on the Clintons, wails of outrage and fears that the ruling opened the barnyard door to Santorum-style depravity filled the air. The debate began with the battle cry, “Save Marriage … NOW!” posted by “Always Right,” who predicted public outrage and saw in the issue a golden opportunity to expose the “radical” Democrats:

“Now that the Mass. Supreme Court has acted to force the legislature to adopt gay marriage, the time is now for Republicans to act to save this most basic institution of this country. We need a US Constitutional Amendment to save us from activist courts who assault religion and basic family values. The public will be outraged over this and the GOP must capitalize on it. The GOP must put the Democrats in a bind. Oppose the Amendment and lose their base, or support it and expose themselves as the radicals they are. Now is the time to act. Put this issue at the forefront for the next election.”

Discussion participant “RobertM”, in a novel twist, argued that it was gay immorality, not Bush administration policies, that was responsible for U.S.-bashing around the world:

“This [ruling] is one of the reasons we are hated throughout the world. The world looks at us and says [we] have no morals.”

And “MJR DAD” wants it on the national agenda, too.

“I agree. Now is the time to make this a political [issue]. Now is the time to stop it dead in it’s tracks. God did not create Adam and Steve … or Andria and Eve … Constitutional amendment or bust … Sign me up.”

In addition to the prospect of a new amendment, “Always right” sees the GOP attack dogs salivating:

“Rove will be happy with this. This offers a great opportunity for next election.”

And “concerned about politics” agrees:

“Yep. That’s why politicians (both left and right) are overwhelmingly supporting heterosexual marriage. Otherwise, they wouldn’t admit it in front of the cameras. It’s a safe move. We CAN use this one.”

But “Jim Noble” tells “Always Right” why a Constitutional amendment may not make a difference.

“Traditional marriage has 3 elements:
1) It is permanent (no divorce)
2) It is sexually exclusive (adultery is a felony)
3) It is between a man and at least one woman.
Which of these does your amendment restore?”

“Therapist” adroitly manages to skewer two venerable enemies of the right, gays and Ted Kennedy, with one thrust:

“This is great that Massachusett’s gay judges did this. Let all the fudgepackers move there and be clients of the Dickem and Dunkem (Ted Kennedy) law firm.”

“Concerned about politics” goes on to respond to another poster’s question, “Can I marry my mule?”

“Sorry. Next step is to give them your boys. They want the age of consent lowered to around 10 years old. Your mule will have to wait in line.”

And when “Elfman2″ tries to interject that “gay marriage (right or wrong) is simple to differentiate from bestiality, pedophilia and polygamy,” “concerned about politics” agrees that gays are in a category of their own:

“There is nothing ‘normal’ about homos. Even the wild animals know better (Except male goats. They’re really filthy).”

Exit strategy: Whitewash the Iraqis
In an interview with Deborah Solomon of the New York Times Magazine, Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America, hopes to bring a Jesus-loving vision to the new Iraq — and keep certain weird old rockers off the Baghdad boob tube:

D.S.: What do you think American foreign policy should aim for in Iraq?

R.C.: In the new country, under the new democracy, why should the official religion be Muslim? I think as Iraq becomes a democracy, there are going to be a lot of churches springing up.

D.S.: Would you like to see American products like television shows flourish in Baghdad as well?

R.C.: Oh, no. I hope they don’t show “The Osbournes” over there. The Osbournes are definitely not a typical American family. Their language is so offensive. Shows like that wouldn’t exist if mothers stayed home with their kids and supervised what they watched.

Lowry vs. Franken
On Tuesday, Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, announced his decision to finally take Al Franken’s challenge: Lowry has agreed to fight the comedian turned political pundit. Though it will be a battle of the books rather than a fist fight, Lowry comes out punching below the belt.

“Anecdotes and cartoons. Anecdotes and cartoons. Don’t use those words with Al Franken to characterize his new book. It’s like waving a no-bid Halliburton contract in front of Dennis Kucinich. Or shouting ‘Fox News’ in a crowded room of CNN executives. Franken’s eyes bulge, his veins pop, his panties twist, and he calls you a prick.

“Actually, let me be strictly accurate. I don’t know what happens to Franken’s eyes, his veins, or his panties. But I have been on and off the phone with him for the last week, and I do know that he calls you a prick …”

Lowry explains why he declined to fight Franken earlier:

“As I tried to explain to Franken, as an editor of a serious political magazine, I have a limited capacity to engage in childish stunts. To preempt similar offers, let me say for the record: No, Al, I can’t mud-wrestle you. No, I can’t participate in a lemon-meringue pie-eating contest. No, I can’t face off in a monster-truck pull. No, I can’t duel at 15 paces. No, I can’t race you down Broadway wearing big floppy red clown shoes.

“I can, however, write. So, my counter-challenge to Franken was to have a battle of books …

“I hope my sure-to-be devastating takedown of ‘Lying Liars’ will kill off the book’s runaway sales …

“In any case, stay tuned for more details about Lowry vs. Franken. There probably won’t be bloodshed, but you never know. Anecdotes and cartoons. Anecdotes and cartoons …”

Franken, whose “Lying Liars” has enjoyed mammoth sales, sees through Lowry’s scheme to boost wimpy sales of his own book, “Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years.”

“To show that I am a bigger man than Rich I accepted his challenge even though he continues to be a pantywaist. I still contend that you can’t call Democrats ‘sissified’ and then refuse to fight.

“I knew that Rich would try to milk this to get publicity for his sorry Regnery book that has fallen off the bestseller list …

“Now, a link to Rich’s shamelessly dishonest column about my book, entitled, at least in the New York Post, ‘Al Franken’s Lying Lies.’

“You’ll notice that in his column, Rich accuses me of a grand total of two lies. First, that I described him as ‘terrified’ during our initial phone call. Believe me, he was. Rich says that’s impossible because we were being ‘jocular.’ Thing is, it’s actually possible to joke while you’re terrified. In fact, that was the entire basis for centuries of Jewish humor.

“The second lie is that I claimed that Rich had stopped talking about Democrats feminizing politics after our encounter on the phone. But, in fact, I wrote that I just thought he had, and even held out the possibility that Rich had indeed continued that nonsense. Still I could have assigned one of my research assistants to Nexis all of Rich’s articles, and for that I apologize. We were busy trying to confirm that Iraq had attempted to buy uranium from Niger.

“(Note: If Rich does find any factual errors in my book, they are the fault of British Intelligence. For example, on page 253 of Lies I claim that Sean Hannity lived up Newt Gingrich’s ass from 1994 to 1998. I got that from British Intelligence. It turns out that Sean didn’t take residence up Newt’s ass until early ’95.)

“So, who’s the lying liar, my friends? We’ll find out soon. Rich hopes before Christmas, so he can be sucked into my tailwind and ride the holiday buying spree…”

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Read more of “Right Hook,” Salon’s weekly roundup of conservative commentary and analysis here.

One recent Sunday, newlyweds Jean and Toby Adams walked to the altar and held hands. The women had been married two weeks before, but not many in the congregation knew that yet. This was Jean’s first time in Toby’s church, and because she had grown up in a similar congregation in small-town California she was cold with sweat on her way to the altar. The 10 or 12 steps to the front of the church seemed long to her, but when they arrived and turned to face the congregation, Toby was clear voiced and calm. “I would like to give thanks for our marriage,” said Toby, and stopped. There was a pause as the senior warden hurried over to them, turned to the congregation, and took Jean’s free hand. “Let us give thanks for how open our church is,” he said. Only one couple left the church as a result.

Since its founding in 1887, this was the first time St. Luke’s had ever had a same-sex marriage proclaimed within its walls, and no one knew how the parish would react. This is not a church used to change; when they received their first female priest, this year, they decided to call her Father Marcia because they didn’t know what else to call a woman priest. Still, the recent votes by the national Episcopal convention to approve the first openly gay bishop and to allow the blessing of same-sex marriages mean that St. Luke’s is now faced with a challenge far more controversial than what to call female priests. While most of the congregants like Toby and Jean, some worry about the legal and religious changes the two might come to represent. “Up until now there’s been kind of a don’t ask, don’t tell policy,” says Toby, “and with the ruling that’s changed.”

Though Jean and Toby Adams didn’t move to Auburn with their 3-year-old daughter Kalen to make a political statement, in the year they’ve lived here their very presence has done it for them. They weren’t married legally — there are no states that officially recognize same-sex marriage — but in their daily lives they still live quietly and openly as wife and wife: at church, in the neighborhood they live in, at the preschool attended by their little girl. In many ways the Adamses are the all-American family — Toby, 37, a software project manager, and Jean, 30, a remedial writing teacher for adults — and if one of them were a man, their neighbors would probably regard them as model parents. Instead, people who’ve lived in the town all their lives are planning to move now that a same-sex couple lives down the block; others cheer the women on. As for the majority, they just don’t know what to make of the Adamses yet — but as time goes on, they’re going to have to decide.

Like other small towns across the nation with low housing prices and good schools, Auburn is an attractive place to raise a family. It has the look and feel of an Old West town, but it’s also close enough to Sacramento and San Francisco to have a few cosmopolitan flourishes. And as same-sex couples increasingly demand — and win — rights similar to or the same as those taken for granted by heterosexual couples, more of them are seeking the quality of life offered by the heartland. The mixed response that Toby and Jean Adams are finding is, perhaps, emblematic. For other small, conservative towns across the country, Auburn is either a beacon of hope or a warning siren.

There are a number of places in the United States today where a gay couple pushing a stroller is considered unremarkable, and if you live in such a place long enough it’s easy to believe the United States will soon follow Canada’s lead in legalizing same-sex marriage. Hawaii, Vermont and California all grant some legal rights to domestic partners, and this fall the Massachusetts Supreme Court is poised to hand down what many believe will be a decision to legalize same-sex marriage rights across the state. But as the number of states recognizing same-sex unions grows, so has the backlash, and now a coalition of right-wing Christian groups has vowed to end the struggle once and for all — through a constitutional ban.

Sponsored by 70 House Republicans and backed by the ultra-conservative Family Research Council and 24 other Christian groups, the Federal Marriage Amendment would legally define marriage in the United States as consisting “only of the union of a woman and a man.” If passed, it would nullify every current state law granting same-sex rights — and prevent states from passing new ones. And while Bush has not yet come out in favor of the amendment, he did throw a bone to the churches who began promoting it on Oct. 12 — one day after National Coming Out Day — by officially proclaiming last week to be “Marriage Protection Week” nationwide. Though same-sex marriage may not be the defining issue in the 2004 presidential race, some experts believe it will be a key issue in small towns and conservative states nationwide.

Auburn may be only a three-hour drive from San Francisco, but in many ways it is closer to the heartland towns of the Midwest. This is a deeply Christian town — there are five churches within walking distance of the Adamses’ home alone — and the ratio of homes to pickup trucks to American flags on their block is 20 to 18 to 7. Auburn is so all-American that it has occasionally become the Hollywood stereotype: For the small-town scenes in “Phenomenon,” the 1996 movie about overcoming intolerance, Auburn was the backdrop. Now that the population is growing with refugees from the big cities, many native residents resent the less traditional ideas they bring with them.

It was into this climate of flux and conflict that Jean and Toby arrived a year ago, and they didn’t know what to expect. Toby was hopeful that by being there in a “not too pushy, not too political way,” people would come to like and accept them for who they are, and so far, she’s seen no overt reason to think the neighborhood doesn’t. Nonetheless, Jean still has doubts about an incident that occurred soon after they arrived: In two weeks, she had four flats. “Right after I got out here, I had to replace two of the tires on my truck,” she says. “At first I thought someone had stuck nails in them on purpose.” These days, Toby and Jean try not to be any more obvious about their relationship than any other couple on the block, though Toby occasionally gets frustrated by the implicit decision they’ve made to not get in people’s faces with their relationship. “We moved here so we could just mow the lawn and then sip some lemonade like the rest of small-town America, but one morning some Jehovah’s Witnesses showed up at our door with a pamphlet about ‘building stronger marriages,’” she says. “And as they walked away, I told them that if they wanted to help our marriage, they should vote for same-sex marriage rights, but when I tried to follow them to make sure they’d heard me, Jean shushed me and said she didn’t want to get political, she just wanted to get to the farmers’ market.” While no longer openly suspicious, Jean remains more shy and guarded than Toby, for good reason: She has seen this kind of town from the other side.

The last time Jean lived in a small town, she was still in the closet, and this has made her wary of Auburn. As a little girl, Jean was raised in the town of Boulder Creek, Calif., population 7,000. There she was brought up to be a Christian like her parents and as feminine as possible. “Growing up in a small town, I was really judgmental about myself,” she says. “When I was a kid, I was a tomboy, but when puberty set in … I just sort of dressed and acted the way I thought people wanted me to dress and act — stereotypical girly-girl. I had long, dyed-blond hair. I wore a lot of makeup.” Raised by a stepfather who was deeply homophobic and a mother who tolerated his views, “I internalized homophobia to the max.” It wasn’t until she was engaged to a man — her high school sweetheart — that she began admitting to herself that she’d had same-sex feelings and attractions since she was 12. “It took me six months after that to work up the courage to go to a bisexual support group,” she said. The group, half an hour’s drive from San Jose, is where she met Toby. Soon after joining the group, Jean cut off the engagement, along with all her hair, and came out to her family as a bisexual. She became a pagan and an activist, trying to help parents whose children had recently come out understand what it meant. Her self-described “dyke” appearance evolved gradually, but today she is protective of her look. “Even if I stand out in Auburn,” she says, “I can’t go back to the Stepford look. That’s not who I am anymore.”

For Toby, the route to bisexuality was less circuitous. “I never had a coming-out process,” she says, “because I was never in. I had my first crushes on a girl and a boy when I was 10, and most of my life I didn’t have a word for it.” She acknowledges that in Auburn, she gets fewer stares than Jean. Generally speaking, with her dark blond hair usually pulled back in a ponytail and her practical khakis and stain-resistant T-shirts, she looks exactly like the suburban mom she is. Raised by a liberal, atheist family in East Coast cities, her larger revelation was a faith in God. “‘Godspell’ and ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ are how I got religion,” she says. She started going to church in college, decided she liked the Episcopal Church because it was “more stained glass and incense with less of the bullshit” of Catholicism, and has been going ever since.

For five years they lived separately in the suburbs of Silicon Valley, not far from San Jose. In 1999, Toby decided to have a baby with the help of a close friend who agreed to act as her sperm donor. Toby and Jean, who had had an on-again, off-again relationship, were just friends at the time. But in the fourth month of Toby’s pregnancy, something changed: “I got food poisoning while I was pregnant, and she [Jean] took me to the hospital, and I knew that things that hurt that bad hurt less when she was holding my hand … I told Jean, ‘Listen, I don’t know if this will work out forever as I hope it will, but I want you to be my Lamaze partner, I want you to be there for the birth.’” In September 2000, Kalen was born. The women moved in together the next year. But although Toby considers Jean to be Kalen’s “dad,” legally Jean has no rights as Kalen’s parent.

“People tend to think legalizing same-sex marriage is an abstract issue, but it’s not,” says Toby. “If we were allowed to legally get married, it would put a whole different spin on everything — on finances, on parenting, on how she’s treated as the dad. When you’re married as a heterosexual couple, a lot of things just click into place, but we just finished the wedding and now we have to spend thousands of dollars to draw up contracts to get what we would normally get. For example, I have to pay taxes on her health insurance benefits as though it were income. The guy who sits next to me, his wife gets health insurance, he doesn’t pay taxes on it.” Even more important, the sperm donor is still considered Kalen’s father at the moment, although California law allows Jean to adopt Kalen under ‘stepparent adoption.’ And though one of Gray Davis’ last acts as governor of California was to sign into law a bill granting many more rights to same-sex couples, it won’t take effect until 2005. In the meantime, if something happens to Toby before the adoption goes through, “it’s a crapshoot in the family courts,” she says.

Paradoxically, the biggest obstacle to legalizing same-sex marriage, say Toby and Jean, is put up by advocates who frame it as a gay-rights issue — because that turns it into a fight between the Christian right and gay-rights promoters, rather than an issue of sexual equality. “It’s not a gay issue,” Toby insists. “We’re not gay! We’re bisexual.” She explains the legal-marriage difference through a puzzle of four couples. “Let’s say my friends Bryan and Kathleen are bisexual, my friends Thomas and Mary are bisexual, my friends Chris and Ted are bisexual, we’re bisexual.” she says. “Chris and Ted get married, they get no rights, Jean and I get married, we get no rights. Thomas and Mary get married, they get all the rights; Bryan and Kathleen get married, they get all the rights. But we’re all queer, we’re all equally as queer! It’s a plain and simple issue of human rights.”

Legal rights aside, soon after moving to Auburn in 2002, Toby asked Jean to marry her — and slipped an engagement ring on her finger when she said yes.

That’s when the trouble with the Episcopal Church began. As an Episcopalian, Toby wanted a religious ceremony to mark the occasion, but while some Episcopal churches are currently providing ceremonies to bless same-sex unions, St. Luke’s is not one of them. Nor would the Episcopal priest recommended by a friend proceed in the end, bailing on them three weeks before the wedding over the pronoun changes — too many wives — in the vows. Finally, an ordained friend of a friend agreed to perform the service. On a sunny afternoon in July, on a Santa Cruz bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, they said their vows under the shade of redwoods. Kalen, then 2-and-a-half, was the flower girl and threw rose petals happily into the wind. The service the officiant performed was mainly Episcopalian, but the brides also wore matching patterned belts of a pagan ritual, and instead of veils, both had wreaths of blue and white flowers in their hair. In photographs, they are beaming at each other, Toby in a white dress, Jean in a dress of midnight blue. And although the celebrant who officiated signed a domestic partnership certificate rather than a marriage license, in their hearts Toby and Jean — who now share Toby’s last name — consider themselves married for life.

The street Toby and Jean live on is lined with split-level houses painted in tasteful colors, beige or yellow or gray, each with a postage-stamp yard. Every house is a variation on a theme: if not a pickup truck in the driveway, then an SUV; if not a tricycle, then a basketball hoop. The lawns are sprinkler-fed green and neatly trimmed; the flower borders teem with zinnias, crepe myrtle, roses. People take pride in their yards, and in orderliness. Almost every other house flies an American flag, though Toby and Jean do not. Next to their house, at the crossroads of two streets, stands a sign: “Warning: Neighborhood watch. We will report all suspicious activities and people to the police.” Although usually less politically showy, today Toby is feeling defiant. “I’ve been meaning to get a bisexual flag,” she says, “but I just haven’t found the right one.”

In fact, there is little visible about Toby and Jean’s house to set it apart. If you ignore the rainbow flag and pro-Green bumper stickers on the pickup truck in the driveway, this could be the house of any neighborhood family with a 3-year-old. In the living room, crayoned butterflies are taped to the wall at preschool height; on the dining room table a lone Cheerio lies marooned 4 feet from the high chair from whence it came. This particular Sunday afternoon, Jean is in the kitchen stirring tomato sauce as Kalen runs into her leg, yelling. “Look, Boo, look!” she says, holding up a drawing. “That’s great, Kalen. Go show Mommy.” “Mommy, Mommy!” Kalen runs off yelling to the home office at the other end of the house. “Boo is her name for me,” explains Jean, looking up from the stove. “When she was really little she would kind of coo at me, and I’d say, ‘Look, Toby, she called me ‘Boo’! So that’s who I am. I’m the dad.”

But thus far, people in Auburn are not quite ready for a woman to be a dad, no matter what name you give her.

Doug and Debra Kyles live a few houses down the street, with three young kids of their own. They’ve gotten to know Toby and Jean, and sometimes Debra baby-sits for Kalen. Clearly she has real affection for the little girl, but when asked, she expresses frank concern for Kalen’s future as the daughter of a same-sex couple. “They’re nice people,” she says, “and if they needed me for anything, I’d be there. But I do have an opinion when it comes to having a child in that environment. I don’t think it’s right. I think a child needs both male and female role models, to balance the child out. Bottom line, I just don’t agree with homosexuals raising children.”

Her husband, Doug, a middle-aged welding contractor who has lived in Auburn all his life, goes further. “I don’t care if they’re really nice,” he says. “If I had it my way I’d oust them. I just don’t like them around here. You think I want my kids looking at that? And thinking hey, that’s OK? There’s a lot of rednecks around here and they’re not going to tolerate it, trust me.” The Kyles are planning to move as a result of Toby and Jean’s presence. As of yet, though, there’s no For Sale sign in front of their house.

The preschool Kalen attends shares space with the county fairgrounds, and though it is within walking distance from Toby and Jean’s house, Toby is running late the Monday of the orientation for new parents and decides to drive. She wears a T-shirt and shorts to the meeting, her hair pulled back in a short ponytail, and as she pulls onto the dirt driveway and rolls down the window to talk to two parents on their way into the building, she looks every bit like a slightly harried soccer mom. “Do you know which room we’re supposed to meet in?” she asks. The woman answers, then squints. “Hey, you were at St. Luke’s a few weeks ago and stood up to give thanks, right?” Toby says yes. “Ah,” says the woman, and pauses. “Well, see you inside.”

Past the school sign painted in rainbow colors there is a noisy, hot room crowded with parents and their waist-high children. The parents here for the meeting are mostly women, mostly in dresses and makeup. The women have all taken care with their hair, and they are all traditionally feminine looking, and white. When Jean arrives, she stands out: no makeup, boy-cut blond hair, black jeans and an oversize, navy collared shirt. “This is my wife,” Toby tells one woman nearby.

The meeting is long and boring. The wives are friendly to Toby and Jean. But when one of them is asked later what she thinks of the couple, she gets defensive: “Oh, them? Oh, you want to know what we think, up here in the middle of nowhere?” After softening, she acknowledges that they don’t blend in. “Well, up here you just don’t see it that much, so it tends to really stand out, though I really don’t care. What the parents do is their own choice, as long as the kid is raised OK. But I lived in the Bay Area for a while, so maybe I’m more accepting than some.”

As far as Kalen’s teacher, Natalie Piercy, knows, all the preschool parents are very accepting of the Adams family. “People really love Kalen,” she says. “But recently there’ve been a lot of new hires and they’re always kind of surprised by Toby and Jean. They’re shy to the idea, and then they see how it is and it’s OK. Personally, I don’t see any problem, with their situation or with Kalen’s situation, but to be honest I do wonder how it will affect her in elementary school. Kids can be mean.”

Born and raised in Auburn, Piercy, 23, says there’s an ambivalence here about same-sex marriage — one that she still struggles with herself. “My parents are really conservative and they’ve had a huge impact on my views,” she says. Growing up, “the closest I came to knowing a gay person was watching “The Real World” — which I think has had a huge impact on my generation as far as that’s concerned. They introduced gay couples to the world.” Today in Auburn, she says, “people like Toby and Jean, but when you ask them if they support gay marriages, they say no. That is in me too a little bit, and I don’t really know how to address or confront that.”

Three weeks after announcing their marriage in St. Luke’s, Jean and Toby are back at church again — and this time it is Toby who is nervous. In news that made headlines across the country, the Episcopal national convention recently decided to approve an openly gay bishop and voted to recognize that some dioceses hold blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples. Those votes have split the St. Luke’s congregation. “This is a challenging time for a lot of really solid churchgoing Christians,” says Father Marcia, “and I’m aware of that on a very definite level.” At St. Luke’s, some parishioners are angry that their bishop voted to approve the ruling, and though Father Marcia agrees with the bishop’s decisions, she has called a meeting of the congregation after the Sunday service to talk about it. One of the issues to be discussed is Toby. Currently, St. Luke’s parish does not have a sacrament blessing same-sex marriage — and although Toby accepts and does not expect that to change with the recent ruling, many in the parish don’t know that. A change would be disastrous, says church member Annie Holmes, one of the few Democrats in the parish. “If the new pastor wants to institute some kind of sacrament,” she says, “that will really drive people into the arms of a more conservative church.” Financially, St. Luke’s can’t afford to lose a single member.

The meeting is held after service in the ugly, grayish community room. Father Marcia’s white collar peeks out from under her flowered dress as she sweeps past the rickety folding chairs and round tables filled with people. Bill Gausewitz, the senior warden and meeting officiant, stands. “I want to explain what the rulings actually were,” he says. “They confirmed an openly homosexual bishop. They authorized local dioceses to establish rites of blessing gay marriages, and recognized that parishes are dealing with this in their own ways.” He clears his throat. “I want St. Luke’s to be open and welcoming to anyone who wants to come here … Some people say they don’t want to keep going to this church if the convention is going to … I say that the convention doesn’t change anything for our diocese.” A few people glance surreptitiously at Toby, who looks only at the warden.

“Besides, there was a time when Father Marcia wouldn’t be here,” Gausewitz says. “Somehow that’s worked.” The room erupts in laughter and the tension eases — for all except one older woman, who is visibly shaking with anger as she stands up. “There’s no comparison,” she says, “between the ordaining of a moral woman and a twice-divorced man who’s been living with another man. We’ve got to protest. I remember Germany in the ’30s and nobody protested and you know what we got from that.”

One gray-haired woman in a gray dress seated across from her, obviously a friend, cuts her off. “No, things change and we learn,” she says quietly and serenely. “This too will become normal,” she says. “Just like everything else.”

There is silence, and finally an older man breaks it. “Whether or not I agree with what [the national convention] did,” he said, “the main thing I’m concerned about is our parish. If we can hold together, that’s what I want.”

There is a chorus of voices around the room: “That’s what I want.” “I want that too.” Some people are teary as the murmurs of agreement go on.

Finally, Toby speaks. “A few weeks ago I thought I wasn’t accepted here. I thought, ‘Take this cup away from me.’ But if I leave, where will I go? So I’m going to stay, and I hope people who feel completely differently will also stay.”

And in closing the prayer circle, the same woman who had stood up shaking in anger held Toby’s hand. “We’re a close parish. We’ll get through this somehow,” she said.

Overall, Annie Holmes was proud of how tolerant her fellow church members were. “There are a lot of people who really feel that same-sex unions are immoral,” she says, “but I think people are really trying not to criticize them. We all know Toby, Toby is very devout and we all like her. That makes a difference! You can rail against people in the abstract, but when you know them it’s a little harder.”

Twenty minutes later, Toby, Jean and Kalen have their family photo taken for the church directory. They are parked next to the woman who railed against Nazis and held Toby’s hand, though they do not know it. “Hi,” they say to her as they wrestle Kalen into the car. Before leaving, I stop the older woman. “What do I think about gay marriage?” she asks. “I don’t agree with it, but we’re a strong parish. We’ll get through this somehow.” Though I don’t realize it at the time, she thinks I’m stalking her by asking this. Four days later, she has a minor heart attack — and blames it on the stress of talking to a stranger about such a volatile subject. Such are the tensions that come with this issue in Auburn.

It is not overly dramatic to believe that, in moving to a small town in the American heartland, Toby and Jean Adams have committed a revolutionary act. Nor is it wrong to say that many Auburn residents — their neighbors, or the members or St. Luke’s church — are revolutionaries too, in their own way. Despite the everyday tensions and uncertainties, they are living together in a way that few would have thought possible even a decade ago.

Not far from Auburn, in the little town of Cool, Calif., real estate agent Brent Stone says acceptance is growing. Although Cool is smaller than Auburn, Stone and his male partner of 13 years say they’ve had no problems being accepted in the three years they’ve lived there. They have two adopted children of mixed race — one in first grade, the other in the fourth — and “they are almost treated like celebrities here,” says Stone. Whether or not he speaks with a tinge of hyperbole, as might be expected of a real estate agent, Stone actively encourages same-sex couples to move to the area — and, apparently, they are.

And yet the awkwardness and tension are real, and in the current climate, Toby and Jean are not sure they’re going to stay. Recently, says Toby, “I found myself having to have my first conversation with Kalen about how people might not be OK with her family, and that’s a lot to lay on a 3-year-old. But I don’t want Kalen to ever think something is wrong with her, and clearly the time is coming soon when someone will say something to her.”

For every Doug Kyles in Auburn there is a Father Marcia, but for the majority of individuals, the fault lines run straight through the heart: While they like and accept Toby and Jean, they still think same-sex marriage is wrong. They are at a crossroads — in one direction an amendment outlawing same-sex marriage, in the other, the legalization of it. They may oppose it in abstract principle, but when they meet Toby and Jean and Kalen, there’s a native impulse to see that they’re just nice people. The same ambivalence plays out in small towns and cities elsewhere in the American heartland.

According to Scott Keeter, author of “The Diminishing Divide: Religion’s Changing Role in American Politics,” an amendment banning same-sex marriage is unlikely to pass, given the lack of national support and the more immediate concerns in Congress over the Iraq war. Nonetheless, he says, “there will be plenty of people who try to make this a wedge issue in the 2004 presidential election. And among conservative white Protestants, Bush enjoys almost unanimous support, so he has a fine line to walk” if he wants to also gain the moderate votes he needs to win. In contrast, Howard Dean has promised that if elected president he will do for the nation what he did for Vermont as governor: legalize civil unions. With a recent Gallup Poll showing the nation split almost in half in favor of allowing gay unions at all, the issue has the potential to force a decision from heartland voters who are not yet ready for for either an amendment or legalization.

As more and more couples move into small towns, slowly, haltingly, they are gaining acceptance. Like other social movements, time helps. And 10 years from now, maybe Kalen won’t have to explain her dad. “It’s wonderful living in California with all the extra rights of domestic partnership. It’s just as wonderful as sending black kids to their own school during segregation — separate but equal, isn’t it great they get to go to school at all?” says Toby, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Everybody knew that wasn’t right and eventually they had to change it. And they’re going to have to change this too.”

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We want to make you a part of this series. What is the state of your union? Did you find the one and never look back, or has finding lasting love been a marathon of trial and error? Did you have a fairy-tale wedding only to watch things crumble once the reception was over, or have you glided along in marital bliss since Day One? We want to hear your stories of joy, romance, heartbreak and pain. After all, partnership, as we all know, is a complex concoction of all of those things. (Please remember: Any writing submitted becomes the property of Salon if we publish it. We reserve the right to edit submissions and cannot reply to every writer. Interested contributors should send their stories to marriage@salon.com.)