Missouri voters turned out in record numbers Tuesday to express in the privacy of a voting booth what many polite Americans are reluctant to say publicly - that marriage is between a man and a woman.

Under normal circumstances, the vast majority of people would slap their foreheads at this point and say, "Duh." But these are not normal times and so "normal" goes underground, emerging only at election time to find expression through the ballot.

In Missouri, an unprecedented number of people turned out to vote for a state constitutional amendment clarifying the definition of marriage. The amendment passed by a 71 percent vote, which is considered not just a landslide but an avalanche. Voter turnout was 42.8 percent for a primary election that usually only draws between 15 percent and 25 percent.

Who knew?

Certainly not those leading opposition to the amendment, some of whom expressed not only disappointment, but hurt, according to The New York Times, which buried the story of the amendment's success on page A-16. Editorial comment noted.

Activists for same-sex marriage say they will study Missouri to try to figure out why their strategy failed in hopes of preventing similar outcomes elsewhere. After all, they spent $450,000 to no avail, compared to just $19,000 the amendment's supporters doled out. What, good money can't buy deeply held values?

Marriage amendments will appear on ballots this fall in nine other states (Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah) and possibly Ohio and North Dakota. Between now and then, same-sex marriage supporters will try to determine what went wrong in Missouri, and what they can do differently.

The answers, respectively are: nothing went wrong, and probably not much.

What happened in Missouri is that people turned out to cast a vote in favor of what they believe to be true and important, that marriage is between a man and a woman. It was not a vote against gays and lesbians, as some will insist, but a vote (ITALICS) for the basic structural unit of human civilization.

No amount of money or political strategy is likely to change either that understanding or the will to preserve it.

Political observers generally say that where goes Missouri, the "Show Me" state, so goes the nation. Missouri and Ohio both are considered bellwether states because they're diverse, evenly balanced between Democrats and Republicans and, as such, are microcosms of the country. Continued...