THE STRUGGLE.(The Talk of the Town)

It was hard to find anyone at the recent anti-gay-marriage rally in Washington, D.C., who had a bad word to say about gays. Chandra Judy, who had come to the "Mayday for Marriage" rally on the Mall with her husband, Manford, and their ten-month-old baby, Eloise, "really wanted to say," for instance, "that this was not about gay-bashing." Chandra, who is slender and blond and wore jeans and shiny pale-pink lipstick, said she was a professional dancer in Washington, and knew a lot of gay people. She had no objection to civil unions. What she and her husband were worried about was the institution of marriage. "If the sanctity of one man and one woman is not protected, if we keep expanding the definition, then where's it going to lead?" Manford wondered. "One man and ten women? A man and a child?" He did not add, as some people attending the rally did, "A man and a dog?" He wore a grave expression and appeared to weigh his words carefully. "If it's not protected at its root, then it cannot be protected."

It was a gusty, gray day; sudden cloudbursts sent yellow leaves whirling from trees. Families huddled under umbrellas and ponchos and American-flag beach towels, holding soggy cardboard containers of French fries. An eleven-year-old girl named Jenna waved a sign she had made that read, "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." But most people in the crowd stuck to the Hallmarkish "Take a Stand for Marriage" logo--T-shirts or signs with a silhouette of a man and woman kissing, illuminated by romantic-looking starlight.

On the podium, speakers such as Gary Bauer, the former Presidential candidate, and Dr. James Dobson, the fatherly chairman of Focus on the Family, were gleefully tearing into "activist judges" and "imperious courts." But they didn't have much to say about gay people. Alan Chambers, the "ex-gay" president of an organization called Exodus International ("the leading outreach to men, women, and youth affected by unwanted homosexuality"), urged the crowd to "repent of our hostility to homosexual people." He went on, "If we're standing at the corner saying, 'Turn or Burn' and 'God hates fags,' ...