Even if the gay marriage debate favors Republicans at the moment, the shift towards support for gay marriage is happening rather quickly, even among devoutly religious young people. Social conservatives who believe it is important to keep the definition of marriage limited to one man and one woman cannot rest on their laurels and just assume the tide will shift back in their favor. The current arguments against SSM are not compelling to people who are young and/or irreligious. To my more socially conservative Republican friends, I’d say either you need to come up with more persuasive arguments fast or we need to be talking with people on the other side to arrange changes in the law that somehow satisfy both sides.

I love Michael Medved and lean against government recognition of gay marriage (although I’m fairly ambivalent), but I don’t think it’s accurate to view gay marriage as a help to Republicans, especially in blue states. Here in MN, Obama may have outperformed opposition to the marriage amendment, but from what I saw in terms of yard signs and on Facebook, people were much more enthused to vote against the marriage amendment than they were to vote for Obama.