By Charles Wolfe
The Associated Press

FRANKFORT - The furor over whether to write a ban on same-sex marriage into the Kentucky Constitution gives Republicans a visceral issue in an unusually significant election year for the General Assembly.

Democrats in the House know they are in the Republican cross hairs. Republicans have taken control of the congressional delegation, the state Senate and the governorship. The Kentucky House is the last outpost of the once-dominant Kentucky Democratic Party.

Democrats hold 64 of the 100 House seats, but all seats are up for election this year and 40 Democratic incumbents have Republican opponents.

The GOP is intent on gaining ground in the House and increasing its 22-16 majority in the Senate. Republicans are overtly courting support from some segments of labor, usually a staunch ally of the Democrats.

In the Senate last week, there was a scene that once would have been considered improbable, if not unthinkable: Republicans, led by Senate President David Williams, extolling and passing legislation for collective bargaining for public employees - police and firefighters in Lexington and police officers in Louisville.

But gay marriage has proven to be the foremost of wedge issues. House Democrats already were on the run when Republicans staged a dramatic walkout in the House on Friday. Hundreds of singing, sign-waving demonstrators cheered them inside and outside the Capitol.

The walkout came as Democrats tried to limit debate and to block Republican floor amendments to a bill proposing a conglomeration of constitutional amendments - a same-sex marriage ban among them.

The Republican floor amendments, if successful, would have resulted in a vote on same-sex marriage alone.

A Democrat, Rep. Rob Wilkey of Scottsville, warned his colleagues that they were being maneuvered. "They want to run a bunch of amendments and force you to vote up or down on them and try to beat you in your elections," Wilkey said.

Speaking to the crowd afterward, Gov. Ernie Fletcher took dead aim at the House's Democratic leadership. He called them obstructionists and said their linking of multiple constitutional issues was "an affront to the people."

Earlier in the week, it appeared there would be no vote on a marriage amendment at all. The Democratic caucus voted by secret ballot to bottle it up and run out the clock on the 2004 General Assembly.

But the ballot was apparently close - reportedly 33-24 - and some Democrats later said privately that they simply had to be able, for the sake of their own elections, to register a public vote on same-sex marriage.