Here's my theory on why the SCLM is portraying the election as about "moral values" and keeps suggesting that the Dems abandon gays if we ever want to win again.
For a long time in this country the youth vote has been trending to the right. This election youth went strongly for Kerry, and there are many reasons to believe this is a new trend which started during the Dean uprising and the Kerry candidacy when youth once again had reason to believe this party had a backbone . They were the only age group to go for Kerry nationally. The SCLM wants to deny us this group (this important group- the voters of the future and the only group firmly behind us now) so the SCLM can, as usual, help Republicans win.
The SCLM knows that despite the unfriendliness of many other age groups to gay rights and other tolerance issues, young people are firmly behind the liberal side of these issues. Liberals should start seeing the media's "electability" advice to us as being as Orwellian as it is, but a lot of people still fall for it. This SCLM "dump the gays" script is the latest example. They'd like to trick us into thinking that we should give up this issue for short-term gain.
But by giving in (in an obviously unprincipled, overly expedient way) on these issues that are important to young people and that young people agree with us on, we will turn off these voters of the future and lose them.
The SCLM wants us to unwittingly trick ourselves out of the long-term loyalty of the voters that will be voting for many decades to come. That's why they keep pushing the "Dems should give up the gays" script even though they know society in the long term is trending our way on this issue. Once again, they want us to be less electable so they trick us into doing something that we think makes us more electable. Don't fall for it.