Last Gasp?

At the Paper of Record, drama crit (former) Frank Rich analyzes the homophobes & pronounces them on life-support, based on the reaction (not much of it) to recent court decisions & law-making. About the NOM advert:

What gives the ad its symbolic significance is not just that it’s idiotic but that its release was the only loud protest anywhere in America to the news that same-sex marriage had been legalized in Iowa and Vermont. If it advances any message, it’s mainly that homophobic activism is ever more depopulated and isolated as well as brain-dead.

We see. And agree. We also commend Mr. Rich on his ability to motivate his interns, flunkies, or research assistants, as the item is filthy w/ links to all sorts of nasty people.

“Gathering Storm” was produced and broadcast — for a claimed $1.5 million — by an outfit called the National Organization for Marriage. This “national organization,” formed in 2007, is a fund-raising and propaganda-spewing Web site fronted by the right-wing Princeton University professor Robert George and the columnist Maggie Gallagher, who was famously caught receiving taxpayers’ money to promote Bush administration “marriage initiatives.” Until last month, half of the six board members (including George) had some past or present affiliation with Princeton’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. (One of them, the son of one of the 12 apostles in the Mormon church hierarchy, recently stepped down.)

Always a shame to lose one of the Mormon aristocracy from your holy mission of repression. But even that "Church" may be deciding not to stand athwart history for this dance. Another Mormon (not in the actual LDS aristocracy, but not an unimportant Utahan) relaxing a bit

is Jon Huntsman Jr., the governor of Utah, who in February endorsed civil unions for gay couples, a position seemingly indistinguishable from Obama’s. Huntsman is not some left-coast Hollywood Republican. He’s a Mormon presiding over what Gallup ranks as the reddest state in the country.

Which gives us the opportunity to reproduce one of our favorite statistical images.