The Washington Post reports on the contrast in the legislative records of gubernatorial candidates Creigh Deeds and Bob McDonnell.  Regarding same-sex legislation…

Both Deeds and McDonnell voted to exclude sexual orientation from a list of hate crimes. They voted against recognizing same sex-marriages and for a measure urging Congress to propose a constitutional amendment describing marriage as between a man and a woman. Deeds changed his votes on those measures when both were amended in their final versions.

Deeds and McDonnell voted to put on the ballot a state constitutional amendment prohibiting civil unions and same-sex marriage. Deeds said he voted for the amendment because he believed that it codified laws banning same-sex marriage. But he said he came to regret his decision and to believe that the language was discriminatory and said so publicly before the 2006 balloting.

Charley Conrad, president of the Virginia Partisans Gay and Lesbian Democratic Club, which has endorsed Deeds, attributes his views to a rural upbringing and said he trusts that Deeds’s views have changed. “He likes to say he is a work in progress,” he said.

Read the full article here.