Fresh from his rousing failure at giving drivers licenses to illegal aliens, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is about to attempt to bring in another policy sure to lose votes and influence people to vote against him -- gay marraige.

Gov. Spitzer said at a private fund-raiser that he wants a Democratic-controlled state Senate to legalize gay marriage - a highly divisive and controversial issue - as one of its first priorities in 2009, a witness to the remarks told The Post.

Spitzer, a gay-marriage proponent, pledged to help Democrats next November win the three Senate seats they need to gain the majority.

"One of the first things we're going to do when [Senate Minority Leader] Malcolm Smith is [majority] leader is gay marriage," the witness recounted Spitzer as telling some 60 people who paid up to $10,000 each to attend the event in Greenwich Village Wednesday night.

"Everybody applauded when he said that," said the witness, who was among senators, Democratic activists and lobbyists at a fund-raising event for the Senate Democratic Committee. It was held in the library of the elegant West 13th Street home of HBO's "Oz" creator Tom Fantana.

Two other witnesses, including an elected official, said they couldn't recall Spitzer's exact language, but added that the governor suggested a Democratic-controlled state Senate would follow the state Assembly's action this year in passing, for the first time ever, a gay-marriage bill.

Spitzer spokeswoman Christine Anderson denied the governor said a Democratic-controlled Senate would make gay marriage a top priority. She said his reference to the Assembly passing a gay-marriage bill "was the line greeted with applause."

It is a top priority for Spitzer, of course, because we know that New York state has no other problems that need to be addressed in a more pressing, urgent manner. And we know that even though polls show that a majority of New Yorkers (like other Americans) oppose the gay marriage agenda, this is the most important thing that the unpopular, scandal-plagued Spitzer can focus his attention upon for the betterment of the lives of the people of his state. Seems to me that he is again wedded to an extreme ideology pushed by the far-left supporters who propelled his campaign than he is on the needs and desires of all New Yorkers.

But this time he did make one interesting move -- he indicated that he will not make this push until after the 2008 presidential election. I wonder -- how big a chunk of his butt did Hillary chew off after the "licenses for illegals" debacle?