Something to chew on...

I was reading MSN's Slate and came across an article titled "the Gay Marriage Myth" that makes an interesting point about the extent to which gay marriage played a part in President Bush's re-election:

"...the morality gap didn't decide the election. Voters who cited moral
issues as most important did give their votes overwhelmingly to Bush (80 percent
to 18 percent), and states where voters saw moral issues as important were more
likely to be red ones. But these differences were no greater in 2004 than in
2000. If you're trying to explain why the president's vote share in 2004 is
bigger than his vote share in 2000, values don't help.

"If the morality gap doesn't explain Bush's re-election, what does? A
good part of the answer lies in the terrorism gap. Nationally, 49 percent of
voters said they trusted Bush but not Kerry to handle terrorism; only 31 percent
trusted Kerry but not Bush. This 18-point gap is particularly significant in
that terrorism is strongly tied to vote choice: 99 percent of those who trusted
only Kerry on the issue voted for him, and 97 percent of those who trusted only
Bush voted for him. Terrorism was cited by 19 percent of voters as the most
important issue, and these citizens gave their votes to the president by an even
larger margin than morality voters: 86 percent for Bush, 14 percent for
Kerry."

That's interesting stuff, but I think it makes even more sense when we dissect the meaning of "moral values". The phrase is comprised of many issues - not just gay marriage - which makes the above argument even stronger. The exit polls didn't ask what the voters meant by "moral values". It's a long-shot, but maybe "moral values" primarily referred to Bush's stance on stem cell research, abortion or one of several other issues.

I wonder if anyone would be so kind as to list what they would consider "moral values".