Doug Benson, a citizen-activist who drafted a marriage equality bill and secured support for it from many legislators last session, says the DFL missed an opportunity to pass the bill and suffered a lack of enthusiasm from gay voters in November. He says that the DFL “carefulled themselves right out of power.”

On his blog, Benson shares his frustration with the DFL’s hesitance to pass marriage equality legislation.

From the beginning, Marriage Equality Minnesota has told it’s now 9000 plus facebook members the way it really is at the legislature. There’s been no whitewashing to score meaningless pats on the head. We told of the slow-walking of our bill, the duplicity of House and Senate leadership, behind the scenes obstructions, insistance on information-only hearings when the bill would have easily passed a vote. Nationally, a third of gays, demoralized over a lack of action on gay rights, voted Republican, up from 19% in 2008. Control of our legislature was lost by only 600 votes. The DFL “carefulled” themselves right out of power.

He notes that “carefulness” on LGBT issues for some DFLers didn’t help them; they were defeated anyway:

Senator Jim Carlson, who refused to sign on to the Marriage and Family Protection Act when it was introduced a second time in 2009, told me, “I have to be careful. I have an election coming up in two years.” He lost his seat, anyway. I guess he was a little too careful. Not one senator who signed onto our bill, lost their seat.

On the House side, Rep. Dave Olin, DFL co-sponsor of the ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE AMENDMENT, lost his bid for reelection by nearly 20 percentage points. If distancing yourself from gays is the key to being reelected, how anti-gay do you have to get? Good riddance to this gay-hating asshat.

Read the full thing at Shower Curtain Chronicles.