He doesn’t want a federal judge overruling state laws defining marriage as a hetero thing. Exactly the same defense many Southern politicians used to protect their ‘right’ to hold ‘the nigras’ down.

And as I recall, Jewish people had to sue the Mormon church to stop its practice of claiming dead people (of Jewish and other faiths) had been converted to Mormonism. So he’s arguing that Mormons should be able to define, segregate and discriminate at will and to hell with all the other religions.

That’s why Mormonism seems more kin to radical Islamicism than to most other Christian faiths. Smith is a devout bigot, wedded to the far right Dubya/Cheney neocons and the only moderation he’s ever displayed has occurred during his two year re-election campaigns. The other 4 years, he’s no better than Jesse Helms was, except he’s less verbally abrasive.

And unfortunately, it works with too many moderate Democratic Oregonians. Even now. He’s polling above 50% still and that’s just got to change. Merkley’s a great candidate but he’s going to have an uphill battle all the way to redefine Gordo as the two-faced hater that he is.

;>)