Lose Some, Win Some - Score one for the activist judges. A day after a fly-over state wrote marriage discrimination into their constitution, a court in one of the coastal Blue States decides that a comparable law violates their state constitution. So how's the apocalyptic battle between the homos and the bigot brigade for the future of our country going this week? Comme si, comme ça, as they say.

On Wednesday, a Seattle judge rendered an opinion that gay marriages are legal in the State of Washington. (This is the case that Lambda did not want Dan Savage involved in, fearing the swinging sex columnist with questionable commitment would do more damage than good to the cause.) Interestingly, the judge explicitly adopted the rationale that civil unions - by creating "marriage-lite" - are actually more detrimental to the institution than letting gays have the real thing.

Meanwhile, the media is divided in analyzing the fallout from yesterday's electoral trouncing of gay marriage in Missouri. On the one hand, the liberal NYTimes says the lopsided victory by traditionalists has discouraged the backers of same-sex marriage. Not so fast, claims the right-wing mouthpiece WashTimes, which finds supporters galvinized like never before, especially on getting John Kerry into the White House.

(Query: If he does win in November, will gay marriage become JFK2's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" - i.e., a bitter, losing battle that saps the electoral clout of a new president during his honeymoon period, forcing him into a compromise that disappoints his gay supporters and that may even be worse for homos than the status quo ante? Something to ponder.)