Let me make myself perfectly clear: I'm in favor of gay marriage. If gay men and women want access to the same privileges and miseries that matrimony confers on straight men and women, why not? But same-sex marriage is emphaticallly not the most important issue in America today--for gays or straights.

Nevertheless, momentum is already gathering for a state ballot initiative to amend the California Constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. It is very likely, given the state's history of approving all sorts of nutty initiatives, that the proposition will pass and, in the process, raise the visibility of the subject throughout the nation.The media will, inevitably, pounce on the issue. It's so much hotter, after all, than boring questions about that boring old war (Osama who?) and affordable health care.

In fact, the positions of John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton on same-sex marriage are virtually identical. They have all said that legal marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman, but that legal protection should be extended to same-sex civil unions. This position offers cover for all three candidates, who probably couldn't care less about whether gay couples waste their share of money on the booming bridal industry. Catering for wedding receptions is, after all, one business that can't be exported to China and India.

But Democrats have more to lose if this issue becomes more prominent. Let's face it: gays (except for those delusional enough to vote for a party that kowtows to a political base, the Christian right, that considers them vile sodomites) have nowhere to go but the Democratic Party. But "values voters" who might otherwise vote Democratic on the war and economic issues could be influenced by gay-bashing right-wing Republicans in swing states. McCain may take the high road, but you can bet that right-wing groups supporting him--even if they still have their suspicions about him--will take the low road.

Of course the state must be involved in defining marriage. Marriage is fundamentally a legal contract--whatever romantic and religious associations are attached to the institution--and legal contracts are governed by civil law. You may consider yourselves married in the eyes of God, but regardless of which rabbi, priest, minister, or imam, or Pagan celebrant officiated at your wedding ceremony, only the state gets to decide whether you can file a joint tax return, and only the state can decide issues of alimony and child custody if the made-in-heaven marriage breaks down on earth. I just wish that the chief judicial body of the state of California has proceeded with more deliberateness than speed and spared us all this debate in a critical election year.

I don't have the slightest idea why happily or unhappily married heterosexuals feel so threatened by the very existence of same-sex marriages, but I can only hope that this controversy will not expand and overwhelm the more fundamental issues at stake in the 2008 election. Let us elect leaders committed to rationality and evidence-based policy making, and I suspect that a majority of Americans will one day be as incredulous at the idea that gay marriage was once considered a vital public issue as we are today at the idea that women's suffrage was once considered "controversial."