GOP LOSING ITS SWING
By RYAN SAGER
THE gay-marriage amend ment that failed Wednesday was never meant to win votes in the Senate - its target was always swing states with large Catholic populations such as Ohio and Michigan.
Perhaps, however, the Republican Party should be thinking a bit harder about swing voters. By again racing ahead to claim the mantle of the Party of Bigotry (it almost got away from them there for a bit), the GOP is doing permanent damage to itself among the gay-friendly, socially liberal younger generation.
This may all seem very clever to Karl Rove: Anti-gay marriage amendments (meant to boost anti-gay turnout) are on the fall ballot in about a dozen states, including battlegrounds such as Michigan and Oregon.
And it may even work for Bush in November.
But the Republican Party is up against an identity crisis, and independent-minded younger voters are going to be quite interested to see which is the GOP's true face:
* Is it Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.), who has publicly stated that the government should be able to regulate all forms of consensual sex?
* Is it Sen. Wayne Allard (Colo.), the lead sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment, who claims that homosexuals have a "master plan" to "destroy the institution of marriage"?
* Or is it the more tolerant George Bush of 2000, when he introduced the phrase "compassionate conservatism"?
The Republican Party plainly wants people to believe that it is the last. At the convention, it's trotting out such friendly faces as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rudy Giuliani for the prime-time speaking spots.
But the Santorums and the Allards will be skulking in the shadows.
While the GOP tries to swing both ways in this election, its leadership may well come to realize that gay marriage was the wrong territory on which to plant their flag.
Polling clearly shows a generation gap here. While 75 percent of Americans over the age of 64 oppose gay marriage, according to a poll NPR commissioned from a bipartisan team, only 45 percent of those aged 18 to 29 oppose it.
And civil unions - opposed 49 percent to 42 percent in the country as a whole - enjoy solid support from those under 40.
The Republicans have put themselves on the wrong side of a generation gap. And it won't be easily papered over as today's young voters age into older voters - who are more likely to show up at the polls.
When it's one of your first presidential elections - as it is for me - it's no trivial matter that voting Republican means a vote for a party catering to the worst prejudices about our brothers, sisters, friends from high school, college roommates, co-workers, bosses, drinking buddies and the like.
I'm not sure I can do it. And, if it weren't for the War on Terror, I know few for whom it would even be a question.
The Republican Party, under Bush, has stopped standing for fiscal responsibility and small government (see "Medicare bill"), it has stopped standing for free trade (see "steel tariffs") and it has stopped standing for free speech (see "campaign-finance reform").
So, what's left?
The War on Terror might cut it this time around. But if the GOP wants to attract members of the younger generation in years to come, it will have to realize that the new millennium is here, it's queer, and, well . . . we're used to it.
E-mail: rsager at nypost.com