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American
Candidates Asked about Gay Marriage Backlash and HB751 "One of U.Va. Pride's members, Wendy Repass, was able to field a question during a filming of Showtime's new reality program, "American Candidate" in Old Cabell Hall Sunday, June 20, 2004. Audience members were invited to write down questions and a handful were selected by the show's producers. Montel Williams and Larry Sabato of the UVa Center for Politics moderated the panel of 7 politician wanna-bees who have come through an open application process to be on the show. Many local activist and political organizations were on hand hoping to be able to ask questions to focus interest on their agendas and many passed out flyers to audience members. Ms. Repass was the first audience member to ask a question which was: "The debate on gay marriage in the US has spurred a backlash in parts of the country. For example, Virginia recently passed a law not only restricting gay marriage and civil unions, but it also strips protections from contracts between same-sex partners- like wills, medical powers of attorney and adoption contracts. How would you respond to this backlash?" The candidates took turns answering the question. Answers ranged from "I strongly support gay marriage", "strong families are good families, gay or straight", to something about someone marrying their mother (I think this was the slippery-slope argument against gay marriage, but Joyce wasn't very clear in her answer). Other social issues were discussed as well. The death penalty, gun control, affirmative action and the Patriot Act were asked of the candidates, who each had time to respond to individually. George Loper of http://George.Loper.org asked Ms. Repass to respond to several questions. Her answers are below: 1. When and how did you first learn of the series and become involved with any of the candidates [e.g. were you at Sunday's town forum, etc.] What encouraged you to offer Lisa support? I was forwarded an email by someone on the Charlottesville coalition of Virginians Stand Up for Equality (http://standUpForEquality.org). It wasn't quite clear to me what the event was. Then the Friday before the show, one of the producers called me, as she was given my name and number because of my work with Stand Up. We talked a little bit about the program, and how they were having a townhall debate on social issues. She indicated that she was inviting local, politically active groups to the debate on Sunday. She also indicated that there would be opportunity to ask questions. I was keenly aware that the new "Affirmation of Marriage Act" (HB751) just passed in Virginia, but it had not necessarily received alot of attention. I thought this would be a nice opportunity to ask a question concerning this law and the general backlash occuring in the US because of the gay marriage debate. I attended the A.C. debate on Sunday, June 20 at Old Cabell Hall auditorium (see description from above). I was very impressed with several of the candidates, including Lisa Witter, as well as Keith Boykin. Malia Lazu and Bruce Freidrich also caught my attention. Lisa seemed to have a great sense of equality issues, especially on the gay marriage question and the affirmative action question. She indicated that lots of work is still needed on a lot of fronts, including women's rights. Keith Boykin was equally impressive, and displayed a historic knowledge. Lisa's campaign sent an email and was endorsed by MoveOn.org. When I received this email, I really started to lean towards her campaign. (Note: I pretty much had to vote on these people based on the debate alone because of the short amount of time.) I personally was pretty torn between the two. Can I admit that the fact that Lisa was a woman who had a lot of similar beliefs as I, really appealed to me? The fact that Keith was openly gay also appealed to me strongly. And I teetered between the two for a while. Then I received the MoveOn endorsement, and the fact that a major organization was supporting her pushed me towards her camp. I sent an email to a list of people telling them about this opportunity and mentioned both Lisa and Keith, and included Lisa's email content. I requested the same from Keith's campaign but did not receive it. 2. What do you make of the series itself? Do you believe it is educational? Entertainment? Do you believe it will encourage anyone to vote who would not otherwise vote? How much do you think it will help reframe the issues currently discussed in the campaign for president? Why did you become involved? It's interesting about the series. I've had several discussions with various people about it. I encouraged other people to participate, mainly because I thought the show, in the least, would allow people to talk about issues that they care about in a public forum that could potentially reach alot of people (Showtime viewers). Participating in something like this is an act of expressing what it is that we care about. And a forum like a Showtime program can be a way to share that opinion with a large group of people. It'll be interesting to see what becomes of the program. I think for some people the show has the potential to act like a litmus test and reflect how voters might elect if given a multitude of choices. 3. Once involved, what kind of assistance were you able to give? What wasthat experience like for you? What worked and didn't work? What did you learn? Including the emails to people, I also called up some friends. I was actually surprised at how people were interested and willing to show up to vote. Granted, most of my friends are pretty active when it comes to voting. But I did have to explain to some people my reasoning for getting other people to participate. One friend wasn't sure the show's premise warrented her getting other people to participate - sort of a "their not running for a particular office, so why vote?" On a separate note, I also volunteer at WTJU and we wanted to get some footage of the event. I went to the Downtown Mall where most of the candidates were supposed to be and found Lisa and Bruce to interview. I also interviewed some of the people standing in line at the polling booth. Of the people I interviewed, one had heard of it through MoveOn and another happened to be walking down the Downtown Mall. This person said that he doesn't usually vote, because it doesn't seem to really affect his life. 4. How would you compare the crop of American Candidates with declared candidates for the presidency, George W. Bush, John Kerry, Ralph Nader and Michael Badnarik? How would you compare them with the original cast of Democratic nominees for president in 2004? Just gauging from the debate that was focused on social issues, I was surprised by their willingness to take a strong stand on certain issues. At one point, during the debate, Larry Sabato asked them if they would ever compromise and indicated that compromise is just a part of political life if you ever want to get elected. It was interesting: the first answer was from Keith who said that leadership was about taking people to a good place that they never really thought they could go. Lisa and others reflected the same opinion. Malia also talked about polling statistics and problems: the US has a low ranking when it comes to the percentage actual voters and that so that in a way our current government is being elected by a small percentage of people. I did notice just through this experience, that it appealed to the competitive side of me. For instance, one of the candidates, Bruce F., seemed very politician-like with measured responses. He also had a group of people in the audience with signs (someone said they followed him down from Philadelphia). And I got the impression from these factors that he may be a big competitor (i.e. has alot of people voting for him) even though I don't really know what the numbers are. And that impression combined with his answers at the debate, led me to think at times that perhaps he might be the winner. It didn't effect my vote at the time, but after a period of time with such an impression, I might have changed my mind - who knows? Knowing that MoveOn had supported Lisa Witter definitely left an impression on me. When it comes to the Presidential election, I am really quite desperate to fire Bush. So much in fact that I will vote for someone who says they don't support gay marriage and other things that I might not agree with just to win. I don't think we would have had this law (HB751) in Virginia that just took away contracts rights from same-sex couples if Bush hadn't endorsed the Federal Marriage Amendment (which is coming up for vote mid-July! See http://tinyurl.com/2lk2q). Hate really shouldn't play a factor in politics and a good leader would know better." U.Va. Pride, Posted June 21, 2004 More about American Candidate:
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