The campaign of Winsome Earle-Sears, the MAGA Republican candidate for governor of Virginia, is exercising its right to remain silent on the matter of a 2004 candidate survey that revealed her to be a throaty anti-LGBTQ+ bigot.
The survey, concocted by a Fairfax County group that calls itself Public Advocate of the United States, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as a hate group because of its anti-LGBTQ+ activism, asked candidates such questions as:
- “Will you refuse to hire homosexual activists?”
- “Will you take necessary actions to stop homosexuals from gaining illegitimate tax benefits by fraudulently filing under any married status on their federal taxes?”
- “Will you reject any financial or political support from the homosexual lobby?”
- ‘Will you oppose legislation adding ‘sexual orientation’ to the list of special protections for hiring in the private sector?”
- “Do you oppose legal minority status for homosexuals?”
- “Is homosexuality an immoral lifestyle choice?”
- “Would you vote to impeach judges who legislate the homosexual agenda from the bench?”
Earle-Sears, who in 2004 was a candidate for the Third District seat in Congress, losing in a landslide to Bobby Scott, answered “yes” on all of the above.
The Earle-Sears campaign is mum on the topic, for probably obvious reasons: the MAGA base is anti-LGBTQ+, which makes the presence of John Reid, a MAGA talk-radio guy who is also openly gay, as the nominee for lieutenant governor a rather awkward proposition for that side.
But then, the MAGA base is also White Nationalist, and Earle-Sears is Black, and the Republican nominee for attorney general, Jason Miyares, is Latino; and the base is also anti-immigrant, and Earle-Sears is a Jamaican immigrant, and Miyares is the son of a Cuban refugee.
The Virginia Republican statewide ticket has a lot to navigate, basically.
Walking back a two decade-old survey to show personal growth and development is not the highest of priorities, even if this is a rather emphatic FU to the 5.9 percent of the adult population in Virginia that identifies as LGBTQ+.
“We must protect the fundamental freedoms of Virginians, no matter who they are or who they love. And every Virginian deserves a governor who will always stand up for them. It’s clear Winsome Earle-Sears will not do that,” said State Sen. Adam Ebbin, a Northern Virginia Democrat who was the first openly gay elected member of the Virginia General Assembly, first elected to the House of Delegates in 2004, then winning a State Senate seat in 2012.
“As the Lt. Governor, I recognize and respect my constitutional obligation to adhere to the procedures laid out in the Constitution of Virginia. I remain morally opposed to the contents of HB 174 as passed by the General Assembly.”
Who does that?
And to be clear, her office didn’t put out a press release touting her brave personal stand there.
The handwritten-note matter was only uncovered this year when Virginia Mercury got a copy of the bill through a public-records request, suggesting that somebody who knew what had happened there tipped the reporter off.
Hall of Fame basketball coach John Wooden used to say that “the true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.”
That note that Earle-Sears wrote was something she did when no one was watching, and that she thought no one would ever see.
Look at those questions from the 2004 survey again, and then consider, her running mate is an openly gay man.
No wonder she jetted out of Buena Vista yesterday before Reid took the stage.
That’s what she thinks of her running mate.
Imagine how fast she’d bolt on basic civil rights for the other 400,000 adult LGBTQ+ folks who live in Virginia.
Leaving so soon?
— Team Spanberger (@teamspanberger.bsky.social) September 1, 2025 at 7:51 PM
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Chris Graham
