I understand why the No on 8 campaign is making such an issue of the Mormon church's support for Prop 8, the California initiative to ban same-sex marriage. I'm reliably told that polling shows there's an opportunity for the campaign here. The church is not popular, and has gone to great lengths to support the campaign institutionally, with call centers, video conferences, and money. Mormons are providing much of the money and volunteer support for the initiative. To supporters of same-sex marriage, this feels like a deeply unfair intrusion by the church. What gives the church the right to reach into California politics and write discrimination into the state constitution? And a church with a history of polygamy makes a tempting political target.

That said, the campaign against No on 8 may be crossing the line in singling out Mormons. One web site is identifying donors by their hometown and addresses. The Daily Kos has launched an effort to investigate the lives of Mormon donors to the Yes on 8 campaign. (Your blogger wonders: Is this a new kind of outing?). Take a deep breath, folks, and think for a minute what the reaction might be if supporters of a ballot measure included a large number of Jews and opponents then published on the web a long list of Jewish supporters with their hometowns. Is this really a good idea? Your blogger -- married, straight, mostly secular (I'm nominally a member of a liberal church that marries same-sex couples) -- has written in support of same-sex marriage and against Prop 8. But I wouldn't want to be associated with a campaign that singles out people for their religion.

 I also suspect that by targeting one religion, the No on 8 campaign may be hardening the opposition to same-sex marriage among many voters, especially religious ones. While many Christian believers may not like Mormons, they also don't like seeing people attacked for their religion. And they don't see anything wrong with people of faith expressing their convictions on an important social issue. And they're right. When the question is marriage, which is both a sacred and a secular rite, it's appropriate for churches to weigh in on the issue.  and problematic to claim they should butt out.

 And as a long-term strategy, supporters of same-sex marriage need to show respect for people of faith. Ultimately, to build a lasting consensus in favor of same-sex marriage, supporters need to convince evangelicals and Mormons and Catholics and other members of faiths that oppose such marriages to change their minds -- or at least decide that legalizing such marriages in the secular sense is no threat to their faiths. And it's hard to convince them of that when you're attacking them for expressing their faith politically. Remember, California is a big battle, but it's only one battle in the fight for marriage equality. Ultimately, you need a national consensus to overturn the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which bars federal recognition of same-sex marriage. This is an important point: the couples marrying in California currently do not have all the rights of married opposite-sex couples like me and my wife. The goal should be to change that. In California, it's not good enough to run a campaign that wins narrowly for the same-sex marriage side. The real goal must be to run a campaign that builds consensus. For that, same-sex marriage supporters need to go the extra mile to respect people of faith.