ate and Amendment to the Constitution banning same sex marriage. Liberals cheered the Mayor and were outraged at the very notion of an Amendment to the Constitution that banned gay marriage. This rhetorical back and forth between conservative and liberal groups was played out in the media, which breathlessly reported every twist and turn in the San Francisco saga. Ultimately, the Mayor was reprimanded by the California Supreme Court and the same-sex marriages he oversaw were declared void (Calvan). But the issue was firmly planted in the electorate's psyche, and the media's supercharged coverage of the issue ensured that it would remain front and center.
Why is this issue so important to some voters, then? As the ultimate winner in the South Carolina Senatorial election, Jim DeMint, put it: "marriage in general is a very important structural societal institution. When you use it to approve and promote homosexuality, it stirs up a lot of people who are not even necessarily socially conservative" (Milligan). This statement could be restated to read that prejudice against homosexuals has been institutionalized in our society and cuts across social boundaries. Thus, even people who are not nominally socially conservative are vehemently against the idea of homosexuals marrying. This point of view received support from the non-partisan Pew Research Foundation, which released a study on voter attitudes to the issue of gay marriage that found that "gay marriage is a make or break voting issue only to the opponents of the idea. Moreover, even among gay marriage opponents the issue has a disproportionate impact on some groups, notably conservative Republicans, evangelical Christians, and voters Age 65 and older" (Knickerbocker). Thus, we see how the issue of gay marriage really refers to the issue of whether homosexuality is tolerated in ou
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