Not since Rosie O'Donnell & Co. manhandled Elizabeth Hasselbeck weekdays on "The View" have liberals been so gleeful to watch a bitter lesbian tear down a confident and beautiful conservative Republican woman. Unresolved high school lust and angst at well-adjusted cheerleaders and popular prom queens should be left for medical professionals, not for midmorning television gabfests.

For many, gay marriage is a key issue.

Yet none of these gilded-ghetto living haters point out that their savior, Mr. Obama, stands against gay marriage, too. Is that change Melissa Etheridge can believe in?

Like President Clinton, who supported regressive anti-gay-rights legislation such as "don't ask, don't tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act, Mr. Obama gets a massive pass from the activist gay left and their stenographers in the mainstream media.

The never-reported political reality is that both Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama understand that key components of the Democratic Party - the black and Hispanic blocs - hold views that Brad Pitt would deem "homophobic."

For these minority groups, and for many other religious Democrats, gay marriage is a nonstarter.

Yet liberal celebrities and activist journalists never hurl epithets at these coddled groups no matter how retrograde their ideas. President Bush correctly pegged this phenomenon as "the soft bigotry of lowered expectations." Political correctness, the rigging of politics using different rules for different groups, and buttressed by the media, ensures that Democrats always have the upper hand.