A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the likelihood of a Democratic electoral "tidal wave." As a primary reason for this, I cited the Mark Foley scandal's effect of removing the last Republican ground of political traction, their biennial pitch to "moral values" as a wedge issue to bring evangelical Christians to the polls in droves. With their new reputation as the Pedophile Protection Party, the Republicans appeared primed to succumb to a national "throw the bums out" sentiment, with the Democrats winning a majority in both Congressional houses.

Now, though, there is a strong chance that many of the bums will stay right where they are.

Why? To put this in perspective, let's go back in time to two years ago, when the Republicans swept the presidency, the House and the Senate. In the race for the White House, the state of Ohio provided the decisive electoral votes that kept the president in power. Exit polling of Ohioans revealed that in terms of salient issues, the electorate split evenly, with the economy, terrorism and Iraq each deciding the votes of roughly a quarter of the electorate. What, then, determined which lever the final slice of voters pulled?

Approximately a quarter of Ohioans based their political choices on a vague conglomeration of issues that they called "moral values." This label covers everything from abortion rights to school prayer, but recently it has become a thinly disguised codeword for gay marriage. In 2004, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court legalized homosexual marriage, and since then the Republicans have never failed to associate the Democratic Party with a decision that many Americans believe to be manifestly offensive. The ruling led to a veritable avalanche of 2004 state initiatives to ban gay marriage, which in turn drew religious right wing voters to the polls in unprecedented numbers. Seventy-five percent of evangelicals voted Republican two years ago. It is fair to say that President Bush won reelection the moment the Massachusetts SJC handed down its momentous ruling.

With this in mind, Democrats and their supporters cannot fail to be frightened by the recent decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court. This past Wednesday, the august judicial body held that "homosexuals are entitled to the same rights as heterosexuals" (CNN, 10/25/06), a definition that they ordered the legislature to apply to marriage. Essentially, this mandates New Jersey to either allow full gay marriage rights or create an equitable civil union law. On its merits, this is by no means a bad decision. It is fundamentally outrageous that homosexual Americans are still treated as second-class citizens. In the long run, history will likely vindicate both this decision and the 2004 SJC ruling as bold steps towards greater societal equality. However, from a strictly political standpoint, such a decision at this time is utterly horrifying.

Democrats are poised for success this year because they have run moderate, populist candidates in swing districts, siphoning off centrist and conservative support from staggering Republicans. Additionally, polls have indicated an evangelical malaise that may depress the turnout of the GOP's most reliable electoral bloc. Those factors, left alone, may spell catastrophe for Bush and his congressional allies. However, this ruling throws that favorable arithmetic into clear jeopardy. Conservative and moderate Democrats may have to spend the waning hours of their campaigns distancing themselves from the political nightmare that is gay marriage. Evangelists, originally turned off by a Republican Party that has become deaf to their interests and mired in scandal, may again flood the polls for fear of political takeover by a Democratic Party inextricably linked with "the homosexual agenda."

This brings to the fore the underlying problem behind the abject failures that the Democrats have suffered in recent years. Simply put, the Democrats are too vulnerable to attack on such emotional issues as gay marriage, abortion, school prayer and religion in public. Unfortunately, this perception that Democrats are out of touch is not simply a Rovian fiction. Liberal veterans of the great social revolutions of the 1960s now dominate the party. These individuals and their allies among liberal bloggers in academia still see the world in terms of romantic, chic causes. Liberal interest groups like NARAL Pro-Choice America and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have largely succeeded in causing the Democrats to value vitriolic and unproductive cultural conflict over the interests of the common people. Association with decisions like this one only heightens the perception of the Democrats as the political organization of the elitist left.

Conventional wisdom still holds that the Democrats will have a decisive advantage in this election. One hopes that voters will look past divisive Republican rhetoric on "culture wars" and vote out the party that has presided over one of the worst congressional sessions in this nation's history. However, looking at recent elections, it is not out of the realm of possibility that the re-emergence of gay marriage in the waning days of the election will again cost the Democrats dearly at the ballot box. Certainly, Democrats will be tainted with the stain of a position that­-regardles of its prevalence at Amherst College-is still absolute anathema to many Americans. In the short run, the Democrats should fight back by leaving the homosexual rights mess at the state level, where it belongs. Americans respond to appeals to states' rights. In the long run, the Democratic party ought to spurn liberal lobbies and start fighting for the little guy again. Americans will spurn spurious appeals to "moral values" for a party that actually wants to debate substantive issues. However, as long as the Democrats keep giving the Republicans ammunition, they will never be the majority party: the gay issue will keep coming out around election time, no matter how deeply inside the closet the Democrats try to bury it.

Schulwolf is a twelve year-old first-year. He is the youngest student to ever attend Amherst College.