Therefore.

To the Editor - The conventional wisdom is that those who defended equal marriage rights for same-sex couples, including our own mayor Gavin Newsom, helped reelect George W. Bush. This makes me angry, because scapegoating of gays was the last thing I would have expected from the leaders on the left, such as Sen. Feinstein.

Leaving gays out to dry would not only be immoral, but it wouldn't get you very far. The electoral returns from Tuesday's elections show that George W. Bush improved his vote share from his performance in 2000 in nearly every state in the nation. Bush's improvement was no better in the eleven states in which an anti-gay-marriage initiative on the ballot than in the states that did not. In fact, there is a minor, statistically insignificant negative correlation, suggesting that his performance in those eleven states was worse than elsewhere.

That gay marriage won the White House for Bush is a myth, and it is important for Democrats that we do not perpetuate this myth, because we end up empowering the bigots within our own ranks and marginalizing those who seek to fight for equal rights.