Selecting Palin was a masterstroke by McCain. He was already almost even with Obama and is now a virtual certainty to win with over 50% of the popular vote and a strong electoral vote majority.

And when he does, he's going to be well aware that he didn't win because the gay Republican masses voted for him in droves out of delight that the LCR's got a booth at the convention (down Aisle Z a ways, just past the recycling center, from what I hear), a pat on the ass from his chief spinmeister, and an invite to sample the kool-aid with the grown-ups at a couple of cocktail parties.

He's going to know that he won because virtually the entire gay-bashing leadership of the Christianist right - James Dobson, Gary Bauer, Pat Buchanan, Laura Ingraham, Bill O'Reilly, and on and on and on - went bonkers for Sarah Palin, whipped their followers into a frenzy, drove them to the polls (in the process passing two, and quite likely all three, anti-ssm constitutional amendments) and elected an administration that they fully expect will lead the charge from the culture-war barricades to save them from the 'gay agenda' and drive the queers and infidels into the sea.

When McCain needs to buck that frothing base and 'reach across the aisle' to get some of the things he really wants (and they don't) - like immigration reform, he's going to need some red meat to toss out to keep them occupied. I don't think McCain shares the rabid homophobia of a large segment of his base, but nothing he has said or done indicates that his respect for gays (remember, this is the guy who heard "lgbt" or "glbt" for the first time a couple of months ago, so let's stick with a term he might know) as human beings or as American citizens goes an inch beyond a platitudinous nod to equal rights - so long as these people don't want to serve honestly in the military, marry in California, enter into domestic partnerships or receive quasi-spousal benefits in Arizona, or, for all we know, engage in (well, ahem, you know what it is they do) in the privacy of their homes in any state (let's say maybe Texas) that agrees with their President that there's no Constitutional right to privacy and no right to personal privacy at all unless a God-fearing, preacher-endorsed legislature creates it.

So when red-meat-for-the-base time comes along, as it will, we're going to have more serious things to worry about than ending DADT or making ENDA inclusive.

[Please excuse me if you came across the foregoing screed on another website. I don't have the time or energy to re-phrase all that hysteria tonight.]

In all of the touting of McCain not sponsoring the FMA or voting for it no one mentions his reason for it. As I recall he has said many times he thinks it is a states right issue, that it was not the federal government's job to set a national standard for marriage in the Constitution.

Since then he has followed this "states right" belief and endosed anti-same sex marriage ballot initiatives in both Arizona and California.

I don't see this as being either gay friendly or inclusive.

McCain should be seen as the Great Pander for he has done it both to the Religious Right and Log Cabin.

Already some of the more extreme Christian facists are praying that if McCain wins the election that G-d will hit him in the head with a 2 x 4 and G-d's handmaiden Gov. Palin will become president. (She is the Esther brought to the kingdom for such a time as this)

No, with great near sightedness the LCR has taken Palin's moose hunting gun only to shoot it so once again there is a great danger the votes of the glbt community will elect an anti glbt administration