A bad night for gay marriage. Democrat Angus McQuilken, to everyone's surprise, appears likely to lose to Republican Scott Brown in the special Massachusetts Senate election to replace McQuilken's former boss, Cheryl Jacques.

Jacques left to become head of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay-and-lesbian-rights organization. McQuilken strongly supports same-sex marriage; Brown is an opponent, and has gotten a lot of help from Governor Mitt Romney.

Rightly or wrongly (and, sadly, I suspect rightly) this race is going to be looked at as a referendum on gay marriage. This wasn't even supposed to have been close. Legislators are going to pay a lot of attention to this on March 11, when they resume the constitutional convention to consider an amendment banning gay marriage.

This isn't good.