Photo by gerdaindc

As the battle over gay marriage in the District heats up — the Washington Blade reports today that D.C. Council member David Catania (I-At Large) may introduce a bill before the end of the month — a number of politics watchers have warned of political tension and conflict that may ensue.

In the Examiner today, longtime local politics watcher Harry Jaffe argues that Catania’s move may provoke what he terms a “political storm.” “My dog isn’t howling yet, but I sense a political storm the likes of which we have not seen since D.C. tried to legalize abortions, and Sen. Jesse Helms emphatically put it down back in the 1980s,” he writes. Fellow Examiner scribe Jonetta Rose Barras darkly warned last week that Catania and fellow Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) may feel some electoral heat over their support for gay marriage, while DC Watch’s Gary Imhoff posits that “widespread voter resentment” may be the result of gay marriage being approved without a direct public say.

However you slice it, it seems like we’ve got a political and cultural hurricane coming, right?

Yes and no.