SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Same-sex marriage supporters celebrated the Senate’s defeat of a constitutional amendment to ban such unions – and seized the moment to warn conservatives and U.S. President George W. Bush that anti-gay sentiments won’t influence November elections.

The Senate rejected the measure by a wide margin, voting 49-48 to limit debate and bring it to a yes-or-no decision. That was 11 votes shy of the 60 necessary.

Charles Simpson, 49, a bookstore clerk in Northampton, Mass., called the proposed constitutional amendment “morally bankrupt and politically irresponsible.”

“As a gay man watching what’s happening, I carry this anxiety that this kind of manipulation of homophobia can carry severely negative consequences,” he said. “Some politicians take advantage of how easy it is to provoke prejudices and make them worse.”

The amendment’s backers announced plans to resurrect the measure in the House next month.

“It is clear that most Americans saw this for what it was: base political pandering, skewed priorities and abdicated responsibilities,” said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Massachusetts’ same-sex nuptials and San Francisco’s short-lived same-sex wedding spree in 2004 were credited with creating a conservative backlash that fueled Bush’s re-election. Yet same-sex marriage activists pointed to the June 6 primary elections as evidence that sexual orientation is irrelevant in politics.

The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a political action committee funding GLBT candidates, reported that nine of its 51 endorsed candidates either won primaries June 6 or earned enough votes for a runoff.

Winners included a lesbian running for a seat in the Alabama Legislature who made it to a two-person runoff, an Iowa lawmaker who won re-election after coming out as gay during his first term, and a lesbian who could become the first openly gay lawmaker in the Arkansas Legislature.

But Evan Wolfson, director of Freedom to Marry, said it was too soon to celebrate, noting that Alabama voters decided June 6 to amend their state’s constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Voters in seven other states will be asked to do the same in November.

The amendment’s supporters, meanwhile, angrily denounced the Senate for refusing to put the matter to an up-or-down vote.

Robert Knight, director of Concerned Women for America’s Culture and Family Institute, said he was insulted by comments from some senators that same-sex marriage was not a pressing national issue.

“There’s nothing more important than protecting marriage and families, because without them the United States faces a bleak future in which government is daddy and mommy and the state keeps growing to pick up the pieces of the shattered social order,” Knight said in a statement.

Patrick Guerriero, president of the gay political group Log Cabin Republicans, said it was “laughable” to say the amendment was gaining support.

“Momentum is on our side as a growing conservative force stands up in defense of the core American values of equality, liberty and federalism,” he said.