In an article for Politico, David Paul Kuhn reports that pollsters are warning that marriage equality may take center stage in this year’s presidential election, just as it did in the polarizing 2004 election.

The article quotes pollster Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, as saying that the issue could aggravate Barack Obama’s problem demographic: white working class voters. “There is no reason to think [gay marriage] should be less potent of an issue in 2008 than in 2004,” he said.

Kuhn writes:

This year, social conservatives are again pushing to turn same-sex marriage into a hot-button social issue. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins hosted a panel in Washington Thursday on “the national implications of the [California] ruling and on the plans to repel this assault on marriage and the family.”

Perkins was joined by Ken Blackwell, who served as Ohio’s secretary of state in 2004. Ohio was one of 11 states to pass a same-sex marriage ban that year. This year, it’s possible that two of the most populous states—Florida and California—could have same-sex marriage measures on the ballot in November.

Some Washington analysts believe gay marriage has dulled as a wedge issue, pointing to the subdued public response to the May 15 California ruling, rising worries about the economy, and stylistic and ideological differences between the Bush and presumptive Republican nominee John McCain.

Others say that the current political landscape has altered the issue environment.

“The difference this time is also that the Republicans are on the defensive so wedge issues work less,” pollster John Zogby said.

Karlyn Bowman, a public opinion researcher at American Enterprise Institute, said there may be a public “exhaustion” with the debate over gay marriage.

But polling suggests there’s been no large drop off in voters concerns over gay marriage between 2004 and today. A report released Thursday by The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press reported that 28 percent of voters view the issue as “very important in their decision about who to vote for in the fall,” only a slight decline from 32 percent in October 2004.

Daily News columnist Ann Bradley revealed that California Supreme Court Justice Carol Corrigan, who cast one of two dissenting votes in the recent marriage ruling, is a lesbian.

She writes:

Certainly the first line of Associate Justice Carol Corrigan’s obituary will be that, as a lesbian, she wrote one of the two dissenting opinions in the landmark California Supreme Court case to ensure her own community’s right to marry. Or to be clear, to use the word “marry.” Make no mistake, this case is about that word: “marriage.”

In her dissent in re Marriage Cases, self-proclaimed centrist Corrigan writes, “Californians should allow our gay and lesbian neighbors to call their unions marriages. But I, and this court, must acknowledge that a majority of Californians hold a different view, and have explicitly said so by their vote. This court can overrule a vote of the people only if the Constitution compels us to do so. Here, the Constitution does not. Therefore, I must dissent.”

Bradley offers sharp criticism of Corrigan’s opinion, likening her argument to the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling that affirmed segregation. She continues:

Trying to bolster her argument, Corrigan contrasts the seeming velocity of gay rights to African-Americans’ century-long struggle for equality: “In less than a decade, through the democratic process, same-sex couples have been given the equal legal rights to which they are entitled.”

Less than a decade? Does this woman read a newspaper? Most historians cite June 1969 or earlier as the beginning of the modern gay-rights movement. Before his assassination in November 1978, San Francisco’s first openly gay supervisor, Harvey Milk – who would have been 78 on May 22 – said, “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door in the country.”

The struggle for gay and lesbian equality has been long, hard and lethal. Corrigan’s task is to interpret the state constitution, not lecture on political strategy. “As a voter, I might agree,” she tells us. Well, that’s hopeful, but it’s not doing her job.

More than 50 years of unyielding struggle for simple justice led to a lesbian being appointed to California’s highest court. And when asked if we are equal, she said no.

While national headlines trumpet New York Gov. David Paterson’s direction for the state to recognize all out-of-state marriages, the move came after two openly LGBT state legislators wrote to the state’s counsel regarding the matter.

The New York Sun reports that Victory endorsees Sen. Tom Duane and Assemblymember Micah Kellner (right) wrote to state counsel David Nocenti stating that if the state didn’t recognize marriages from other jursidictions, they would introduce legislation to achieve that policy themselves.

New York Democrats are one seat away from taking control of the state Senate. They already control the Assembly.

Two Norwegian political parties, The Christian Democrats and the Progress Party, have joined forces in opposing new legislation that would allow gays and lesbians to marry and adopt children. In addition, the law would allow lesbians to qualify for state-funded fertility treatment.

According to Aftenposten, the two parties normally don’t work together, despite both belonging to the non-socialist bloc in parliament. The parties claim to oppose discrimination against gays and lesbians and support their parental rights, but thy worry that Christian schools may lose state funding if they teach that marriage is between partners of the opposite sex.

The bill, which comes up in Parliament on Thursday, is expected pass due to the country’s left-leaning majority.

Polish member of parliament Janusz Palikot (right) may face suspension from the ruling Civic Platform party after he made critical comments about the founder of the ultraconservative Catholic radio station Radio Maryja.

Spiegel Online reports that Janusz gave an interview with the Polish daily paper Polska earlier this month, claiming that the station’s founder, Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, stole money, “sow[ed] hatred in human hearts,” and was the “personification of Satan.”

The paper writes:

Radio Maryja, a nationalist Catholic radio station that wields significant influence in Poland, has been accused in the past of broadcasting anti-Semitic statements (more…) and it has openly lobbied against gays and lesbians, which it commentators depict as “sick exhibitionists.”

Palikot, a proponent of gay rights, is expected to be suspended from his party group for up to three months, the Polish daily Dziennik is reporting. The head of the Civic Platform caucus, Zbigniew Chlebowski, called Palikot’s statements “scandalous” and said disciplinary measures would be taken against him.

The politician reportedly said he was willing to change the wording of his remarks about Rydzyk to make them less offensive. “I was, am and hope to be proud of being a member of the Civic Platform,” he told the daily Rzeczpospolita, according to the English-language Web site TheNews.pl. “I would like to remain in the party and avoid being suspended.”