COLUMN: On marriage, what a difference eight years makes

On November 14, 2004, just a few days after the election, the New York Times ran a story headlined “Groups Vow Not To Let Losses Dash Gay Rights.” The article was datelined “St. Louis,” and it recounted the first major post-election conference in which gay-rights organizers tried to regroup after an election “when voters in 11 states resoundingly approved amendments to their constitutions against same-sex marriage and gave a majority to a president depicted in one doctored video here as the Wicked Witch of the West.” But for gay rights groups, the situation, in 2004, was even worse than that. Exit polls showed President George W. Bush won reelection because of “moral values,” not terrorism or the economy, and moral values was taken, in many quarters, to mean opposition to gay marriage.