Jun 16, 2006  |  By: ELIZABETH A. PERRY  | COMMENTS     

Gay rights supporters in Virginia were divided over the results of this week’s Democratic primary, in which James Webb defeated Harris Miller for the chance to take on Republican U.S. Sen. George Allen in the general election in November.

“James Webb has very broad appeal in Virginia,” said Arlington County board member Jay Fisette, who is gay. “He makes this a competitive race and brings national security credentials that give him an immediate standing to challenge George Allen and George Bush in a way few people can.”

But the state’s gay Democratic group, the Virginia Partisans Gay & Lesbian Democratic Club, endorsed Miller in the primary.

Fisette said he believes the endorsement split the gay vote. Both candidates are pro-choice and in favor of including sexual orientation in non-discrimination policies regarding employment and housing. They also favor sex education in public schools, adding sexual orientation to the list of categories for hate crimes protection and oppose amending the Virginia Constitution to ban gay marriage. Both oppose same-sex marriage.

The only gay issue on which they differ is whether to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that bans openly gay men and lesbians from military service. Webb supports ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” while Miller opposes it.

Unofficial results from the June 13 primary vote show that Webb garnered 53.47 percent of the votes cast to Miller’s 46.53 percent. A total of 155,508 voters cast ballots in the statewide open primary, resulting in a lackluster 3.44 percent turnout.

Taylor West, a spokesperson for the Miller campaign, said Miller will unite behind Webb and work to help get him elected in November.

Webb, a decorated Vietnam veteran, was a senior Pentagon official during the Ronald Reagan administration. He was an early critic of the war in Iraq, and left the Republican Party because of the war.

“Everywhere I went, I had to face a room where people wondered if I really was a Democrat. When these people stepped forward to endorse, they were saying they were comfortable with my values,” Webb said in an election night interview with the Associated Press.

Toni-Michelle C. Travis, associate professor of politics at George Mason University in Fairfax, said she believes the deciding factor in the primary for voters was electability. She said voters see Webb as a stronger opponent than Miller to beat incumbent Allen.

Both Fisette and Travis said the gay vote was not as important in the primary election as it could be in the fall. Travis said the gay vote could become a factor with issues such as the state’s marriage amendment, health care and inheritance laws garnering attention.

“If one of these issues becomes ‘the issue’ in the House and Senate or in a specific campaign [the gay vote] will make a difference,” she said. “Then we will need to pay a great deal of attention to the gay vote and the difference it can make.”

In a recent interview with the Blade, Josh Israel, president of the Virginia Partisans Gay & Lesbian Democratic Club, said that as Democrats, the Partisans might never find a candidate who will agree with them on all issues, but that Webb will be “an enormous improvement” over Allen.