News

Being gay not hindering Polis' race

Mon, Dec 17th 2007, 13:22

Jared Polis, campaigning as the first openly gay candidate for Congress from Colorado, can't wait to take his partner to a delegation dinner in Washington, D.C.

The Boulder Democrat wants to sit beside Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, a Republican from Fort Morgan, who tried to put a same-sex-marriage ban in the Constitution four years ago.

"I think I can change a lot of minds on a personal level — win people over to show that sexual orientation is not a measure of people's integrity," he said.

The fact that Polis is gay has hardly come up in Colorado — minus some derogatory name-calling on a right-wing blog — where he is locked in an intense, ultra-expensive primary battle to replace Senate contender Mark Udall.

But the former state school-board chairman and self-made Internet millionaire has picked up money and, last week, endorsements across the country with the promise of sticking up for gays and lesbians everywhere. He vows to fight for gay marriage, anti-discrimination laws and the right to serve openly in the military.

When voters ask him if he's married, sometimes Polis says no, and sometimes he tells them he can't get married because he's gay.

"I try to treat my orientation the same way I would if I was straight, which is to talk about it when it's relevant," he said.

Capturing deep-pocketed gay activists matters more in this race than collecting the "gay vote," since there aren't vast numbers of gay voters in Adams, Weld and Boulder counties, said Steve Welchert, a Democratic political consultant.

Plus, Welchert said, politics have evolved past the point of all blacks supporting Obama, all women supporting Clinton and all gay people backing Polis. The gay factor is not key in the campaign, he said.