What if you went to a casino, sat down at a blackjack table, put up your chips and won 32 hands in row. You would naturally think that either a)the game is fixed in your favor or b)you are the luckiest person in the world. Either way, it is good to be you. So what would you say to the person who won 32 hands in a row cashes in his chips, hides the money in his mattress, and will never come within 10 miles of the casino convinced that he can never ever win?

You would think that such a person was negative beyond belief and a scaredycat. But what, instead of just chips and money, with every winning hand you protected real people, real souls, and real institutions and the only cost of losing was a little temporary unpopularity? Wouldn't you put up your chips for that 33rd hand?

In 32 states the issue of gay marriage has come before the electorate and 32 times that electorate chose to protect marriage and define it as the union of one man and one woman. So it peeves me to no end when I read one of the cadre of supposedly conservative pundits advocating that we give up on protecting marriage, suggesting it is a battle we cannot possibly win.

Last week the President endorsed publicly a stance that everybody and his brother knew that he held privately for ages. It's like Richard Simmons announcing he likes shorty shorts. Yeah, we kinda already knew. But even the President is not advocating any specific legislation.

Shortly after President Obama's statement of the obvious, Rasmussen showed Romney surging in the polls (at one point with a 7 point lead.) A new poll by Gallup shows "twice as many Americans say President Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage will make them less likely to vote for him than say it will make them more likely."

Yeah. Now is the time to give up. They have us on the ropes.

Are we that afraid of being called names that we are willing to let traditional marriage die even when we are ahead?

If this is losing, we should be doing a lot more of it.