[kach22i]

The Ballot Wedge Issue of 2006 has arrived- Gay Adoption
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-02-20-gay-adoption_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA/

Drives to ban gay adoption heat up in 16 states
By Andrea Stone, USA TODAY
Efforts to ban gays and lesbians from adopting children are emerging across the USA as a second front in the culture wars that began during the 2004 elections over same-sex marriage.......................................... ....... Election-year politics. Republicans battered by questions over ethics and Iraq "might well" use the adoption issue to deflect attention and draw out conservatives in close Senate and governor races in states such as Missouri and Ohio, says Sherry Be***** Jeffe, University of Southern California political scientist.

The aim is to replicate 2004, says Julie Brueggemann of the gay rights group PROMO: Personal Rights of Missourians. She says marriage initiatives mobilized conservative voters in 2004 and helped President Bush win in closely contested states such as Ohio. Republicans "see this as a get-out-the-vote tactic."

Republican pollster Whit Ayres is skeptical. Adoption, he says, "doesn't have the emotional power of the gay marriage issue because there is no such thing as the phrase 'the sanctity of adoption.' "

And this is how the Republicans intend to keep power in 2006 and 2008 elections. The lack of dignity to this approach is enough to make baby Jesus weep.