Reply #: Because I have been following them for some time...

[hooraydems06]

... and they have all had a history of voting against previous gay rights bills or making statments saying that it's OK to fire gay people (Lipinski is especially notorious for this) or co-sponsoring anti-gay legislation (Skelton)

If you compare the list, with a few notable exceptions (like the two cited in this reply) with the list of Dem "nay" votes for the hate crimes bill passed earlier this year, the list is virtually identical.

As for this particular case, I would not use this vote alone to say most of those 18 deserve to be ousted or have support from registered Democrats withheld (except Lipinski, in particular, who represents a district that is far more progressive than he is, and has a great primary challenger in Mark Pera), but I would add it to augment arguments in cases where we do not manage to get a majority for some Congressional initiative even though we've got a majority in the Congress. That wasn't the case for this vote, but it has been for quite a few others.