As the results came in some Democratic elders increased pressure on Mr Edwards and Mr Dean

As the results came in, some Democratic elders increased pressure on Mr Edwards and Mr Dean to withdraw, arguing that neither had a realistic chance of ultimate victory and that the priority was to unite the party behind Mr Kerry in the overriding cause of defeating President George Bush.But neither opponent seemed ready to take the hint. The fatal blow came in Iowa, where General Clark did not compete. His gamble was that Mr Dean would win, and that as a military man with strong national security credentials, he would emerge as the “stop-Dean” candidate.Instead, Iowa chose Mr Kerry, a decorated Vietnam war hero, depriving General Clark of much of the rationale for his candidacy. In New Hampshire the following week, his support ebbed as Mr Kerry’s surged. On 3 February he won his only primary victory in Oklahoma.Fundraising became difficult, forcing General Clark to suspend salaries for many campaign workers.

But he repeatedly showed his political inexperience, initially stumbling over his position on the Iraq war and betraying ignorance of several significant domestic policy issues. In the last three months of 2003, General Clark raised $15m (£8m) in campaign funds.He enjoyed the informal blessing of Bill Clinton, and many of the former president’s senior advisers joined his campaign. Short of money, and with no realistic prospect of further success, he formally announced his decision in a press conference in his home town of Little Rock, Arkansas.After belatedly entering the contest in September, General Clark emerged as Howard Dean’s main challenger when it seemed as if the former Vermont governor would carry all before him. The field for the Democratic presidential nomination narrowed further yesterday when the retired general Wesley Clark gave up his short-lived bid, leaving John Edwards as the only candidate with a chance of halting the Massachusetts senator John Kerry.
General Clark bowed to the inevitable after dismal third-place finishes in Virginia and Tennessee on Tuesday, two southern states on which the former Nato commander had pinned his hopes. The court has simply affirmed that ’separate but equal’ laws do not work Not for Rosa Parks in Montgomery in 1955 Not for Vivian Malone at the University of Alabama in 1963. Not for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and his wife, an Asian woman, in Virginia in 1968. And not for same-sex couples in Massachusetts today.”Tony Perkins of the conservative Family Research Council in Washington, said: “We could not support putting into the constitution a right for homosexual couples to have civil unions.”.

It very rarely happens that you get both the left and the right saying the same thing. When that has happened in my career, I know that I am on the right track.”Gary Daffin, the chairman of the Massachusetts Lesbian and Gay Political Caucus, said: “Born and raised in the deep South, I am well acquainted with the language of segregation. A total of 38 states have laws that define marriage as a heterosexual institution, while 16 are considering introducing measures that will ban same-sex marriages.Brian Lees, the Massachusetts state senator and Republican who helped draft the amendment, said: “I’ve heard from people on the left that it’s totally unacceptable and preposterous and I’ve heard from people on the right that it’s totally unacceptable and preposterous. Charles Rasmussen, spokesman for the House Speaker Thomas Finneran, said: “I’ve never seen anything like this.” In addition to the unprecedented spectacle at the Statehouse, which saw Christian fundamentalists line up against gay couples and their children, the gay marriage debate is likely to become a key part of the US presidential election campaign.John Kerry, the Massachusetts senator and Democratic front-runner, supports civil unions, while President George Bush has condemned the court ruling and made clear that he will soon endorse a federal constitutional amendment that will limit marriage to men and women.The decision in Massachusetts will also have an effect elsewhere at the state level. A bipartisan group of state senators have proposed an amendment to the constitution that would ban gay marriages but permit civil unions.Activists arrived at the Statehouse to try to lobby lawmakers. But opponents to such marriages have seized on the opportunity presented by the constitutional convention to try to amend the state’s laws and scotch their prospects.