Feb 27, 2009  |  By: Chris Johnson  | COMMENTS     

As candidates seeking to become the next governor of Virginia vie for the gay vote, the race’s Democratic contenders met for the first time with a gay group to answer questions and hear concerns before the primary.

The three candidates seeking the Democratic nomination reached out Feb. 21 to the Virginia Partisans, a statewide gay Democratic group, during the organization’s board retreat in Arlington.

Additionally, the Democratic candidates — Terry McAuliffe, a former chair of the Democratic National Committee; Brian Moran, a former Virginia House delegate; and Creigh Deeds, a state senator — spoke with the Blade in separate phone interviews Monday.

Tucker Martin, a spokesperson for Bob McDonnell, the presumptive Republican nominee for the race and Virginia’s former attorney general, said McDonnell was unavailable for an interview before Blade deadline.

During the Virginia Partisans retreat, which was closed to the public, Moran and Deeds appeared in person, while McAuliffe’s campaign manager, Mike Henrey, represented him due to a scheduling conflict.

Charley Conrad, president of the Virginia Partisans, said in a statement Monday that the meeting was historic for gay Virginians.

“There was a time not very long ago in Virginia when no politician wanted to even say the word ‘gay,’” he said, “and now we have all three Democratic candidates for the top elected office coming to us for an endorsement.”

Conrad said Virginia Partisans would endorse a candidate in April. The Democratic primary is set for June 9.

A poll published Feb. 3 by Public Policy Polling found that a majority of Virginia voters — 53 percent — are undecided on which candidate they will support for the Democratic nomination. Of the voters who had made a decision, 18 percent said they would support McAuliffe, another 18 percent said they would support Moran and 11 percent said they would support Deeds.

“We are looking at which candidate is best on issues affecting the LGBT community, and also at which one is most likely to be able to win in November and then get things done as governor,” he said.

Conrad said each candidate made opening remarks and took questions from board members during the retreat. He declined to describe how candidates were received and their responses to questions.

McAuliffe, Moran are advocates ‘for equality’

In their interviews with the Blade, each of the candidates expressed different perspectives on why gay Virginians should support their bids to become the next governor.

McAuliffe encouraged gay Virginians to support his candidacy because his “whole life has been about fighting on issues, fighting for equality for folks.”

He cited his work in giving gays a greater voice in the Democratic National Committee as evidence of his support for the gay community. McAuliffe said when he was chair from 2001 to 2005, he created the office of gay outreach, sent officials to Pride events throughout the country and “put members of the GLBT community in all the targeted states.”

“I have been very aggressively out there making sure that the members of the GLBT [community] were included in all of our political activities,” he said, “so I’ve had a long history of being out there supporting the GLBT community.”

McAuliffe said Virginia needs businesses to come into the state to provide new jobs if Virginia is to bring itself out of its economic and budgetary problems. Comp-anies would be reluctant to come to the state if Virginia is perceived as “a discriminatory state” in matters such as the availability of benefits, he said.

McAuliffe said he believes in “full contractual rights” for gay Virginia residents and their partners when it comes to matters such as “health care decisions about when people are dying” and “how death benefits are treated.”

Virginia last year approved legislation that established a medical registry enabling gay Virginians to make emergency medical decisions for their partners.

Moran called himself a “strong advocate for equality” in his legislative career — which ran from 1996 to 2008 — and said he would value the support of gay Virginia residents in his campaign.

Moran never voted contrary to how Equality Virginia, a statewide gay activist group, asked lawmakers to vote on legislation in the General Assembly. Pro-gay legislation that he’s supported includes a hospital-visitation rights bill in 2007 and legislation in 2008 that set up the medical registry. Moran voted in 2005 against legislation that would have prohibited adoption by gays.

When the Marshall-Newman Amendment came to the House floor in 2005 and 2006, Moran was one of three delegates to speak out against it. The measure, which made a prohibition on same-sex marriage and civil unions part of the state constitution, became ...