From Donna Britt, Washington Post columnist:

"In a recent column, I noted that the Bible mentions poverty more than 2,000 times. The Good Book refers to homosexuality fewer than a dozen times, often obliquely. Jesus never mentioned homosexuality; same-gender sex didn't even make God's Top Ten list of no-nos. Adultery and premarital sex, also biblically frowned-upon, abound.
Yet gay marriages, and the legal decisions that fueled them, sparked a firestorm that helped consume Kerry's presidential hopes.
In the past year, Americans endured numerous moral outrages, including mounting casualties in Iraq, fresh-faced U.S. soldiers torturing helpless prisoners and a thin but rested-looking Osama bin Laden scolding us from a TV studio. There wasn't a thing we felt we could do about it.
But gay newlyweds' in-your-face exuberance provided a "Fear Factor" moment many Americans didn't have to sit still for.
...
In a nation divided, demonizing the "other" -- whether an antiabortion Republican or a war-despising Democrat -- deepens the rift. Those who automatically judge political opponents as evil, stupid or "un-American" aren't just wrong. They're part of the problem. Those who fear strengthened Republican majorities should recognize their humanity -- and find creative, authentic ways to appeal to it. Those frustrated by the rank, often selfish fears that spurred some to vote Republican must do better at dismantling them. Confronting issues that tempt both sides' rigidity -- abortion, gay rights, the environment, the war -- we must learn to hear the "other's" heartfelt points of view.
We must explain, then defend our views -- not to a backward "enemy," but to fellow citizens whose humanity we can engage.
And we should fight, passionately, for our beliefs. Those who crow about the president winning more votes than any candidate in history fail to mention that Sen. John F. Kerry won the second-most ever. The numbers on both sides represent incredible amounts of energy and conviction that only a fool would underestimate.
The United States' most threatening marriage is the miserable one between its Republican and Democratic halves. Like many marriages, it's an ever-shifting union between squabbling, self-involved partners convinced of each other's misguidedness.
One minute, one partner is on top; the other the next. Power shifts like mercury between them.
What if both partners acknowledged their flaws, and their need of that exasperating "other"? What if before trying to punch, hammer and overwhelm each other with their views, they pondered a poet's wise sentiment:
Pieces fit. People flow together.