We like the gays (but not in a gay way)

The way that the candidates have been treating the queer community this election season has already been.... interesting. The democrats, while forced for the first time to go to an LGBT-specific question and answer forum, have been largely trying to ignore the issue. All of them are "friendly" towards queer issues - but not that friendly. Civil unions, fine; gay marriage, well, let's not get carried away, you silly gays. John McCain has also been staying away from this realm of issues, probably because (a) it reminds conservatives of one of the areas in which they hate him, and (b) conservative positions will probably hurt him w/ some indy voters and not really help him much w/ others.

Enter: California's confusing decision to overturn the law banning gay marriage. Confusing because... I don't really get what that means. A source tells me that this means Ellen Degeneres and Portia di Rossi are getting married. But the decision just makes it not illegal for queers to marry, it doesn't make it legal for them to do so. Which makes my head hurt (that, and fading of last night's vodka.)

Regardless, their have been a whole slew of op-eds and whatnot saying that this apparently means social issues are back on the table. In case you forgot, Republicans used the fear of gay marriage to get out the vote in 2004 and reelect that retarded ape who serves as America's president. And now that gays have reminded old white Southerners that they exist, the old white Southerners are going to stop at nothing until McCain gets elected and doesn't do what they want, anyway, because he is crazy and senile.

All I know is, when Obama is the nominee, he will have some work to do with the gay community, which for whatever reason has never really warmed to him. Clinton has had the lead in this department from early on. Leading Edwards wasn't hard, as he had those comments about him being uncomfortable with gays lurking always above his head. But I think a lot of LGBT felt better with Clinton because gay guys are often more comfortable with women than with men (for a whole host of psychological reasons I won't worry about while hung over) and for queer women I think that Clinton's challenges breaking gender stereotypes was probably something they could relate to. It is interesting that Clinton did so much better with these voters, even though their positions on LGBT issues are pretty much the same, so you'd think that gay voters would split between them roughly with the same ratio that voters nationwide did.

At least if gay marriage ends up dooming another election, we will have a new state to blame for fucking everything up. Florida, you may be off the hook this year.