Brian Synder/Reuters

Senator-Elect Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts this week not only potentially puts President Obama’s effort to reform the nation’s health-care system on the chopping block, but also carries with it the possibility to derail any meaningful legislation targeted towards LGBT people for years down the road.

The upset in Massachusetts this week after state attorney-general Martha Coakley failed to win the special election for the open US Senate seat of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy cannot be underestimated: considered one of the ‘bluest’ states in the union, the Bay State elected its first Republican senator in a generation. As a result shockwaves are now spreading throughout the Democratic caucus, as elected officials up for re-election attempt to interpret the defeat of a Democrat–albeit a Democrat that seemed truly uninterested in actually running for the seat–in a state like Massachusetts.

While many politicos and curious bystanders will spend the next couple of days and weeks combing over the campaign, reviewing what happened and coming up with reasons to explain why it happened, it is important to reflect on what impact this shift in political power will have on foreseeable gay-rights legislation. Let us call it the “Brown Effect.”

The dominant issue in the campaign was health-care reform. Scott Brown, who billed himself throughout the campaign as the 41^st vote against President Obama’s legislative agenda, promised to vote against the final health-care bill that is currently being speedily stitched together by the White House and Democratic leadership. It can be, and will be, argued that Brown largely won because voters who had taken a risk on President Obama and his proposed policies became frustrated and disillusioned as they watched the legislative process play out.

On other issues, such as gun-control, abortion rights, and marriage-equality, Brown has actually articulated himself to be a rather moderate Republican. On marriage-equality specifically, Brown states that while he believes that “marriage is between one man and one woman,” he believes states should have the ability to decide the issue for themselves via the legislative process. This is a position very much akin to President Obama’s own feelings on the issue. Health-care reform aside, Brown has not demonstrated himself to be an obstructionist Republican like say a Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IO) but rather a more, dare I say, liberal Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

What all of this means is that Scott Brown is ultimately not the most dangerous aspect of the Brown Effect. While his 41^st vote does pose new hurdles for Democratic efforts on health-care reform and other efforts because of the filibuster gridlocked Senate, it is the affect his nomination will have on the Democratic caucus that potentially has the most damming effect, especially as it relates to issues like gay-rights, which have consistently served as fuel for social-conservative Republicans to stir up their base. And while issues like the economy, the employment rate, and health-care will be the dominant issues for the mid-term elections, the ability of social-conservative Republicans to use social-issues as wedge issues to sway voters cannot be ignored.

To be sure the Brown Effect was already in effect in Washington before Scott Brown came onto the national stage, but it had been waiting for the right event to come along to give it a name. Particularly, since last August we have consistently seen individual Democrats and the Democratic caucus take steps to the center-right in hopes of avoiding exactly what happened in Massachusetts on Tuesday: anti-incumbent and anti-liberal sentiment triggering a voter revolt in the polls.

For Democrats in swing-districts even the slimmest possibility of being painted as liberal, ‘leftist’, or progressive in this environment is politically risky. This is obviously bad for gay-rights legislation. The Democratic leadership has largely come to the aide of these at risk Democrats by promising them that once health-care gets passed (and now that is a big if) that it would stay clear of controversial issues.

While some Democrats such as Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) still continue to state their desires to either address an issue like Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell with a formal hearing (Levin), or put the repeal in the yearly Defense Department appropriations budget (Frank), the leadership, the White House, and (now formally) the Pentagon (which has implied it desires that any change in the policy should wait until at least 2012) have all suggested that these issues will be tabled until after the mid-term elections. Until that point, gay-rights activists will have to wait to see what the new political realities are in the wake of what seems to be a rough year for incumbent Democrats.

The future of gay-rights legislation now hangs in balance. With the Democratic Party following conventional wisdom and embracing the center, gay-rights advocates are likely to find themselves once again marginalized as the party switches into survival mode to maintain its majority status.

Then again, what else is new.