But Could They Field-Dress a Moose?

Caitlin Flanagan and Benjamin Schwarz write on the growing tension on the Left between black folks and gays in the wake of the passage of Proposition 8 in California. The debate continues: is gay marriage the new civil-rights frontier? Or is the comparison intrinsically offensive to black suffering?

As the son of a black man, it saddens me to see the casuistry with which many black folks try to draw distinctions here. Just call a spade a spade, so to speak: much black resistance to gay marriage is not philosophically principled; it is indefensible homophobia.

But actually the reason I'm singling this Op-Ed out has little to do with the issue at hand, and everything to do with the authors' introduction of an especially useful term of art, in discussing those who must fit under the Democrats' big tent. Angry White Men, Soccer Moms, Hockey Moms, etc.: Move aside. Has there ever been a more felicitous phrase in political demography than 'minivan moms of Minnetonka'?