The voters of California have voted to recall Governor Gray Davis and elect action film star-turned-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger to office.

Many GLBT leaders feel that the election of Schwarzenegger may lead to the erosion of rights that have been granted to the community under Governor Davis.

“Governor Davis is the only Governor in the State of California’s history that has signed any gay rights legislation,” State Assemblymember and Speaker pro Tem, Chris Kehoe said in an interview with the Gay and Lesbian Times. “Governor Davis has signed bill after bill, from the beginnings of the Domestic Partners Registry to AB 205. He is by far the most supportive governor in our state’s history of our equal rights.”

When he first entered the campaign, Schwarzenegger said that he supported GLBT rights and that he favored domestic partner rights. However, one day before the election the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Schwarzenegger said he would not have signed AB 205, which gives registered domestic partners most state-level marriage rights and was recently signed into law by Governor Davis. The revelation lends encouragement to right-wing extremists who are currently seeking to overturn the civil rights law both in court and at the ballot.

“The recent civil rights gains of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Californians are under serious attack,” warned Geoffrey Kors, Equality California’s (EQCA) executive director. “We are facing two lawsuits and two ballot measures that would take rights away from families and deny LGBT Californians hard won civil rights protections. We need a governor who will stand beside the LGBT community and take a leadership role in opposing these efforts and supporting our struggle for full equality. Schwarzenegger is clearly not that candidate.”

EQCA, a GLBT civil rights group, has called on Schwarzenegger to publicly state his position on the proposed ballot referendum that would prevent AB 205 from being enacted, but he has so far failed to respond.

“We are hoping he is the moderate he has said he is, although we are dismayed and disappointed with his stance on AB 205,” said Dr. Delores Jacobs, the executive director of The Center. “Hopefully that stance was campaign talk and he will return to his previous stance that fairness and equality for all is an important guiding principle in California.”

Kehoe and members of the LGBT Legislative Caucus are already planning to meet with the new governor to find out where he really does stand on this and other issues.

“We will definitely try to line that up as soon as possible,” Kehoe said. “I’d like to know where he stands on equality for LGBT Californians, and if he says he supports our equal rights, then how is he going to demonstrate that. If he did say and intends to stick to his words that he would not have signed 205, that’s a huge problem, and we would have to sit down and talk these things through.”

Some are shocked at the widespread popularity of Schwarzenegger at the polls. Last month organizers of the Mexican Independence Day parade in Los Angeles withdrew an invitation for Schwarzenegger to participate in the parade after he announced that he was against granting driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. He was also accused of mistreating women in the days leading up to the election, allegations which did not appear to hurt him at the polls.

Schwarzenegger has yet to show how he plans to actually accomplish the goals he set out for the state, which is currently in a fiscal crisis.

“It was pretty much campaign slogans, and now he’s going to have to turn those into real policies,” Kehoe said. “That’s just a huge challenge, saying ‘I’m an outsider’ and ‘I’m going to clean up things in Sacramento’ and actually presenting a budget 12 weeks from now. He’s going to have to decide, as we’ve been talking about for the last couple of years, between taxes and cuts, and it’s not an easy thing to do. You can’t just do it with slogans.”

Locally, leaders are waiting to see how Schwarzenegger handles the transition. It is already being reported that Schwarzenegger has appointed conservative Republican Congressman David Dreier to head his transition team. Dreier, who served as co-chair of the actor’s gubernatorial campaign, has a record in Congress of opposing gay rights initiatives. In 1996 he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act and in 1999 he voted to ban gay adoptions in the District of Columbia. He opposes granting gays and lesbians civil rights in the workplace, and is in favor of a constitutional amendment to bar gay marriage.

“The next few days and weeks will be crucial for his new administration,” Jacobs said. “They will begin to choose direction and set tentative policy. In that process we hope the governor-elect will listen to all Californians, not just the opinions of a few.”