--Although the religious opposition to gay marriage in Maine garnered most of the attention, it's important to recognize that faith leaders worked hard to protect the state legislature's marriage equality law. Given recent national polling showing majority support for relationship recognition (civil unions and/or gay marriage) among all religious demographics -- including white evangelicals, Catholics and black protestants -- as well as majority support for gay marriage among young people, this issue is hardly settled.

--Dan Gilgoff and Mark Silk have interesting takes on what the NY-23 race means for conservative religious groups who backed the hard-right third-party candidate against a moderate Republican who didn't share their positions on social issues. Short take: it wasn't a great night for the religious right.

--In my home state of Virginia, Bob McDonnell had the interesting challenge of downplaying his well-documented religious right background, which he addressed in part by ignoring hot-button issues. Judging by his performance among self-identified moderates and independents, it worked.

--It'll be interesting to see whether the Virginia strategy or the upstate New York plan predominate in 2010. The religious right's role in a changing GOP hangs in the balance.