After Gov. Abigail Spanberger trounced her in Virginia, Winsome Earle-Sears targets marriage equality

Former Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears is returning to the campaign trail less than a year after voters decisively rejected her bid for governor. She is not moderating the anti-LGBTQ+ positions that helped define her candidacy. She is building a new campaign around them.

Earle-Sears has launched what she calls the “Life and Marriage Tour,” a statewide effort urging Virginians to reject proposed constitutional amendments protecting reproductive freedom and marriage equality in the November election. The Republican plans to take her message to churches, community organizations and local leaders, though specific tour stops have not been announced.

In an email to supporters, Earle-Sears said the amendments “raise serious concerns” and could alter principles important to Virginians, ABC affiliate WRIC reported last week. “That is why our efforts are focused not only on informing voters, but also encouraging them to carefully consider these proposals and vote NO on both amendments,” she said.

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The marriage amendment would remove the ban on same-sex marriage that Virginia voters placed in the state constitution in 2006. It would instead affirm that two adults may marry regardless of their sex, gender or race and require the state to treat all legally valid marriages equally. Voters will decide the issue on November 3.

Equality Virginia Advocates Executive Director Narissa Rahaman said Earle-Sears was reviving the same politics voters had already rejected.

“While Winsome Earle-Sears spends her fall peddling the same anti-LGBTQ+ attacks that Virginians rejected by double digits last year, real families who’ve built lives together will be focused on protecting themselves from government interference and out-of-touch politicians,” Rahaman said in a statement to The Advocate.

The existing provision, known as the Marshall-Newman Amendment, defines marriage exclusively as a union between one man and one woman. It also bars Virginia from recognizing civil unions or other legal arrangements carrying the rights and benefits of marriage. Although courts rendered the ban unenforceable and the Obergefell decision rendered it moot more than a decade ago, its language remains inside the state’s foundational document.

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Supporters of the proposed amendment say that is more than a symbolic problem. Without an affirmative state constitutional protection, same-sex couples in Virginia remain dependent on federal court precedent for their ability to obtain marriage licenses.

When Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed legislation placing the amendment before voters, she said families should not have to rely solely on the U.S. Supreme Court for their security.

“We want to make sure that Virginia families know that here in Virginia, it is not just a Supreme Court decision that protects them, but it is also our state constitution,” Spanberger said at the February signing ceremony.

Earle-Sears’ opposition is the continuation of a political record extending back more than two decades.

In 2024, while serving as president of the Virginia Senate, Earle-Sears signed a bill prohibiting officials from denying marriage licenses because of a couple’s sex, gender or race. Her signature was required, but the handwritten objection she added was not. She wrote that she remained “morally opposed” to the legislation.

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That position followed her into the 2025 governor’s race. During her only televised debate with Spanberger, the Democrat raised Earle-Sears’ opposition to marriage equality and workplace protections for gay people.

“My opponent has previously said that she does not think gay couples should be allowed to marry,” Spanberger said. “She’s also said she thinks it’s OK for someone to be fired from their job for being gay.”

“That’s not discrimination,” Earle-Sears interrupted.

Spanberger’s campaign turned the exchange into a television advertisement. Earle-Sears, meanwhile, spent much of the closing stretch of the campaign attacking transgender people in advertisements modeled after President Donald Trump’s2024 strategy.

Virginia voters ultimately gave Spanberger 57.6 percent of the vote and Earle-Sears 42.2 percent.