WHEN STATE SENATOR Cheryl Jacques announced her candidacy for Congress in her hometown of Needham on July 15, she did so with the help of political stagecraft right out of the family-values handbook. Barely a few minutes into her speech, she introduced " some very special people who are the most important people in my life — my wonderful family. "

There was, though, a striking deviation from the Norman Rockwell setting: the first family member Jacques introduced was " a person who I love very much and who is there for me every single day — my partner, Jennifer. " Perhaps Rockwell, were he alive, would have added, Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Unfortunately for Jacques, the promise of that day came to a crashing end this week. Despite the surrealism of an election held in the midst of a terrorist attack, the results were pretty much what had been predicted. Though Jacques came in second in a field of seven in the Democratic primary for the late Joe Moakley’s Ninth Congressional District seat, she finished well behind the winner, State Senator Stephen Lynch of South Boston. (See " Redefining the Race. " )

But with Jacques likely to re-enter the arena as a candidate for lieutenant governor in 2002, a race she abandoned in order to jump into the congressional sweepstakes, it’s worth pondering the significance of an important — if largely unremarked — moment in gay politics.

Jacques was just the second out gay or lesbian candidate to run for an open congressional seat in Massachusetts, following in the footsteps of Susan Tracy, who made an unsuccessful bid to succeed Joe Kennedy in the Eighth District in 1998. (Barney Frank and the now-retired Gerry Studds came out only after they had been in office for several terms.) Moreover, by giving her partner, Jennifer Chrisler, such a visible role, Jacques broke ground by offering an image of gay family life as one of her political bona fides. It wasn’t just that Jacques introduced Chrisler at her announcement or hired her to be her finance director. There was the annual Pride parade, held just before the congressional race, in which Jacques — the grand marshal — rode with Chrisler in a convertible and waved. There have also been the neighborhood meet-and-greets, at which Jacques and Chrisler, according to witnesses, worked the crowds like an old married couple.

" The most important educational task gay men and women can do today is simply be themselves — as openly and clearly as Cheryl Jacques has done, " said journalist, author, and gay-marriage advocate Andrew Sullivan in an e-mail. " Jacques is too liberal for me, but I applaud her honesty and decency and her part in bringing about the normalization of homosexuality. I just wish there were even a smattering of publicly out gay men in politics to match the candor and honesty of so many lesbians. "

Adds Sean Cahill, a former Massachusetts politico who is now the research director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Policy Institute: " I think in some ways it’s a significant advance. It’s a barrier that has been broken. "

Perhaps even more important, there is precious little evidence that either Jacques’s sexual orientation or her relationship with Chrisler was a factor in the election’s outcome one way or the other. Jacques did not run a particularly good campaign, broadcasting poorly thought-out negative ads and letting outside groups such as EMILY’s List play too prominent a role. But that had nothing to do with her relationship with Chrisler.

In fact, the only time Jacques’s personal life became an issue was when the media, led by the Boston Herald, reported that Chrisler’s salary had risen by 92 percent during the four and a half years she had worked in Jacques’s office, and that Chrisler and Jacques’s brother Tom had lived for a time in a below-market-rate apartment for senior citizens. Jacques responded that she and Chrisler had not been partners when Chrisler worked for her, and that she had had nothing to do with lining up the apartment. In any case, the pay-raise issue was dubious: as the Phoenix’s Seth Gitell reported, Chrisler’s salary increases were not unusual for someone who had received a series of promotions, and Jacques’s chief-of-staff, Angus McQuilken, had seen his pay rise by 118 percent over roughly the same length of time (see " Jacques’s Generosity, " TJI, News and Features, July 27).

What was interesting, though, was that Jacques came under scrutiny not for having a lesbian relationship, but for the possibility that she had improperly done favors for her partner. Says WLVI-TV (Channel 56) political reporter Jon Keller: " That strikes me as the mark of equality. It was accepted as a legitimate relationship in that sense. "

Even Herald columnist Howie Carr, who can usually be counted on to dispense a homophobic bon mot or two, wrote that Jacques’s biggest mistake was that she " forgot a cardinal rule of political life: You never put your 20-something gal-pal on your own payroll when you can let some other solon hire your Sapphic soul mate and give her the 92 percent pay raise. "

In other words, a hack is a hack is a hack, regardless of sexual orientation.