Nov 05, 2004  |  By: STEVE WEINSTEIN  | COMMENTS     

FOR THE FIRST 19 years of my life, I lived in southern Ohio. I know these people. They are by and large as honest, decent and hard-working folk as you’ll find anywhere.

But above all, they are religious. They believe that the Bible is the word of God and that the purpose of history is to carry out His will.

That’s why, in a nutshell, the Democrats lost Ohio, and why they lost the election.

The unasked question, however, is whether we gay Americans provoked a social revolution in the electorate.

Have we inadvertently wrought the most effective machine in American history? It not only managed to defeat John Kerry but has denied us the most precious right of all — that of legal recognition of our relationships with those we love — in 11 states.

In the grim light of day on Wednesday, Nov. 3, I am depressed and angry: depressed about the future of this country and angry at those who sacrificed the election for their own interests.

I accuse the gay leadership in this country of putting their own selfish interests above the greater good of the electorate.

There is no reason why we should have been pursuing the issue of gay marriage on the eve of an election year. The key to being a good general is not knowing how to choose the victories, but in judiciously choosing your defeats.

Would it have made such a difference to those couples in Massachusetts if they had waited a year or two before tying the knot? Would it have hurt San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom or New Paltz Mayor Jason West to have put off marrying gay couples until Nov. 3, 2004?

YES, I KNOW. Hindsight is always 20/20, and every Monday morning quarterback scores a touchdown. But these are questions we have to be asking ourselves, and I don’t see anyone else doing it.

Let’s put this in a historical perspective. The gay rights movement is still in its adolescence. It took more than 100 years from John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry — the beginning of the movement toward black equality in this country — until Congress passed the Civil Rights Act.

It was only 35 years ago that a ragtag group of drag queens, lesbians and gay boys provoked the police at a mafia-run hole-in-the-wall bar called Stonewall on Christopher Street.

These are long-term battles in a very long war that we are only beginning. So what did we do? Something that no one would have thought possible a few short years ago.

We alienated large numbers of black churchgoers. We brought out believers in evangelical sects who had previously shunned the ballot box. We even got the Amish — Amish — to get into their buggies and drive to polling places.

This was no mean feat. Unfortunately, it meant losing every single vote on gay marriage and handing the election to President Bush.

The Republicans control the pulpits of evangelical Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Jewish congregations.

In this country, the most pious in the western world, the party that can motivate religious conservatives the way the Republicans just did is going to control the White House and Congress. It’s just that simple.

CONGRESSMAN BARNEY FRANK came in for a round of catcalls when he criticized the San Francisco mayor for his timing in marrying gay couples. People, myself included, thought Frank was out of touch.

We were wrong. He was right.

Frank is probably the most intelligent and brutally honest member of Congress. A gay Jew, he has managed to continue to win in a district where most of the voters are conservative Catholics.

This guy understands retail politics at its most basic level. He knows how to street fight. And he knows how to pick and choose his battles.

I challenge the leaders of our gay organizations to profit from his example and to learn from this debacle. For a few months, a few weeks, a few days, maybe we should all just shut up and think really hard about where we are and where we want to be going.