From Eric Zorn, Chicago Trib columnist:

"U.S. Sen.-elect Barack Obama made that point in his second debate with challenger Alan Keyes, who made incessant, hectoring attempts to claim the moral high ground:

"Well, I think there's something immoral about somebody who's lost their job after 20 years, has no health care, are seeing their pension threatened. I think there's something immoral about young people who've got the grades and the drive to go to college, but just don't have the money."

It's at this level that Democrats/liberals/progressives need to start trying to bridge the "moral values" gap into which John Kerry evidently fell Tuesday. Yes, morality is important. But it's obscene to apply the term to something as ultimately harmless as the legal status conferred upon a gay couple and not apply it to, oh, say, the idea of waging a pre-emptive war based on an ill-supported conjecture or giving huge tax breaks to the richest Americans while cutting funding for education and after-school programs. The left should eagerly embrace the term "moral values" and join the debate.

War is a moral issue.

Tax policy is a moral issue.

Workers' rights is a moral issue.

The environment is a moral issue.

The preservation of civil liberties is a moral issue.