Candidate Halfaday says he's been getting anti-gay messages

Local gym owner James Halfaday, who says he’s the first openly gay candidate to run for Charlottesville City Council, told The Daily Progress on Thursday that he’s received numerous anti-gay messages since announcing his candidacy, including defaced campaign fliers and disparaging remarks via Facebook.

Halfaday, one of seven Democrats who’ll compete for three City Council nominations in Saturday’s party primary, said one of his promotional fliers was returned to his campaign mailing address on Aug. 7 with his face crossed out and the message: “Democrat Don’t Want You Homo.”

Halfaday said he sought legal advice about the flier, but was told that it didn’t constitute a threat, so there was little he could do about it.

According to Halfaday, the flier is the latest in a string of similar attacks.

In a message dated July 31, an emailer told Halfaday: “Promoting perversion is nothing to be proud of in your campaign, and you will have to answer for what you are now doing one day. Move out of Charlottesville fagot[sic].”

Halfaday, who spoke to the Progress about the incidents in the final week of primary campaigning, said he tried to stay focused on his platform of education, finance and accountability, but the attacks hurt.

“Since day one of this campaign, I’ve tried to keep positive, keep my attention focused on the main goals of my campaign,” Halfaday said. “These were little minor speed bumps in the campaign but they hit home because they attack my lifestyle, even though my lifestyle wasn’t on my platform.”

Halfaday also received a private Facebook message that contained a “disparaging reference to his sexual orientation,” according to a letter addressed to Halfaday and fellow Democratic candidate Kathy Galvin from Charlottesville Democratic Committee co-chairs Tom Vandever and Jim Nix.

The letter, dated May 4, describes a meeting that occurred that same day in which the two campaigns met with the party to discuss the Facebook controversy.

The letter states that the Facebook message was “generated by an unknown person but configured to give the impression that it had been sent by Kathy Galvin,” but all parties agreed that Galvin had not been involved.

“Furthermore it was the unanimous agreement of the meeting participants that all of the messages in question had very likely been generated by an unknown third party with the goal of causing damage to the reputations of Kathy Galvin and James Halfaday and to adversely affect their campaigns for City Council,” the letter reads.

Nix and Vandever urged both campaigns to keep the incident under wraps to lessen its impact.

“To insure that the perpetrators of this ruse achieve none of their intended results, and to protect the reputations of everyone involved, you are urged to inform all those with whom you have discussed this incident of our conclusions and insist that wider dissemination of information about this incident be avoided,” they wrote.

Halfaday said he originally wanted to keep the hate mails quiet because he assumed they would die down and he didn’t want to start an “uproar” in the gay and lesbian community. He said he chose to come forward now because he’s run a successful campaign despite the negatives, adding that he’s not going to be intimidated.

“By me leading by example I think it’s OK for the community to know that if you have good, strong leadership or somebody who’s goodhearted and ultimately forgives people, it’s OK,” Halfaday said.

Jonathan Stevens, a Galvin campaign adviser, said he thought the Facebook issue was a “dead letter” a long time ago. Stevens said someone had set up a fake account in Galvin’s name and copied her picture, but nobody asked Facebook to try and trace the account.

“It was put aside as one of those nasty little things that can happen on the Internet,” Stevens said.

Nix said Halfaday was ready to “raise a fuss” when the Facebook incident first occurred, but making it public would have only damaged both candidates. Party organizers were ultimately unable to find out who was behind it.

“I have no idea who the mischief-maker was,” Nix said.

Nix said that, to his knowledge, Halfaday is indeed the first openly gay person to run for City Council.

“This is 2011, it’s not 1970 or something like that,” Nix said. “…Sadly, we do still live in an age where some people just don’t accept that and do mean things.”

Halfaday is competing with six other candidates — Galvin, Satyendra Huja, Paul Beyer, Dede Smith, Brevy Cannon and Colette Blount — in the Democratic primary, which will take place 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday at Burley Middle School. The primary is open to registered city voters willing to sign a Democratic declaration form.

The three Democrats nominated this weekend will eventually compete with at least five independents — Bob Fenwick, Scott Bandy, Andrew Williams, Paul Long and Brandon Collins — in the Nov. 8 general election.