Bishop Harry Jackson at a press conference in September. Photo by JoeinDC

After the D.C. Council voted this week to legalize same-sex marriage, Bishop Harry Jackson, the proposal’s most prominent opponent, sounded almost conciliatory in congratulating the District’s gay rights movement for winning the legislative battle. But now Jackson is back to his hard-charging ways, threatening to take the measure to Congress and defeat a number of the council members who voted for the legislation.

In a U.S. News and World Report interview, Jackson said, “In future races, religious people are going to start going after people’s political careers. In D.C., some very vulnerable black councilmen went along with the city council, and some of these guys will not be sitting in those chairs in 2010 elections. Many in our coalition are wising up, looking for candidates. Political action committees are going to be formed. You’re going to see a bloodletting that is going to mark a new style of engagement for people who are against same-sex marriage.”

“Bloodletting?” You may as well threaten to burn members of the council at the stake, huh?

The “black councilmen” Jackson cites are pretty easy to name — Vince Gray, Kwame Brown (D-At Large), Michael A. Brown (I-At Large) and Harry Thomas, Jr. (D-Ward 5). And then there’s the black councilwoman who voted for the bill, Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4). But of all of these, who does Jackson think he can dethrone?

Vince Gray and Kwame Brown are generally well-liked and occupy citywide seats, so it would be tough to get them. Michael A. Brown holds one of the few seats set aside for non-Democrats, so it again limits any potential challengers. Bowser, like both Browns, isn’t up for re-election until 2012, so unless same-sex marriage produces the societal downfall that Jackson has warned of, the issue could long be forgotten by the time she’s running again. So the only real vulnerable council member is Thomas, who by his own admission was forced to make a politically tough vote when he sided with the other 10 members of the council who voted for the bill.

It remains to be seen what type of influence Jackson, who only “moved” to the District in April, might have. Though he surely has the ear of many sympathetic local ministers, his threat to take the fight to the Hill runs the risk of fracturing his coalition. In a recent Wall Street Journal article on the issue, Rev. Patrick J. Walker, an opponent of same-sex marriage who runs the New Macedonia Baptist Church in Ward 8, said, “The citizens of the District of Columbia do not need the Hill to meddle in our affairs. I’d rather see this in court than on the Hill.”