Josh Svaty, standing, a Democratic candidate for governor, speaks at a forum on the University of Kansas campus Monday, along with Republican candidate Jim Barnett, left, and Democratic candidates Jim Ward and Carl Brewer.

Four of the major candidates for Kansas governor turned out for a forum Monday at the University of Kansas, where they discussed issues ranging from taxes and education funding to rights of LGBT state employees and legalization of marijuana.

But with most of the major Republican candidates staying away — most notably incumbent Gov. Jeff Colyer and Secretary of State Kris Kobach — the audience was left to hear only from those who largely agreed with each other on most of those issues.

“I am the only Republican that is showing up in real debates,” former state Sen. Jim Barnett, of Topeka, said in his opening remarks. “The Republican Party had debate agreements limiting who could ask questions and what questions could be asked. I think that’s against the platform of what I would consider the Republican Party.”

At first, only three candidates were at the table, including Barnett, former state Rep. and Kansas Agriculture Secretary Josh Svaty, and House Democratic Leader Jim Ward.

Former Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer, a Democrat, arrived late, saying he was delayed helping a stranded motorist on the Kansas Turnpike. State Sen. Laura Kelly, D-Topeka, said in a message that she could not attend because she was taking part in conference committee negotiations on the state budget at the Statehouse.

Barnett, Svaty and Ward all said that if elected, they would reinstate an executive order, first enacted by former Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius but repealed by former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, protecting state workers in the executive branch from job discrimination based on sexual orientation or identity.

Svaty said that Kansas is increasingly being seen as intolerant of certain groups, something he said needs to be turned around.

“We cannot afford any of what I call unforced errors,” he said. “The state of Kansas does not have mountains. We do not have coastlines. So if we’re going to attract businesses, if we’re going to attract investment, we can’t go out of our way to be sending discriminatory messages to the rest of the country.”

“I will issue an executive order in my first 24 hours restoring the protections for gay, lesbian and transgender people in Kansas,” Ward said. “I will fight to put that order into the laws so that no matter who the governor is, it will be permanent.”

“We’ve got to change our image, and this is one of the ways to change it,” Barnett said. “We can’t appear as a state that just wants to talk about bathroom issues.”

The forum did expose some slight difference of position on legalization of marijuana. Svaty and Ward both said they support legalizing it for medical purposes but were not yet ready to endorse legalization of recreational marijuana.

Barnett, a physician, said he supports legalization of hemp production. But he said as a physician that he doesn’t believe the scientific evidence is clear about the medical benefits of marijuana.

Also present, but not invited to participate in the forum, was Libertarian Party candidate Jeff Caldwell, who supports full legalization of marijuana.

Barnett, Svaty and Ward all said they support expanding the state’s Medicaid program, known as KanCare, under the Affordable Care Act. They also all said they support increasing funding for K-12 education, and that those increases should not come at the expense of higher education.

One of the final questions of the forum concerned Douglas County’s upcoming public vote on increasing the local sales tax to fund an expansion of the county jail, something that KU political science professor Burdett Loomis, one of the moderators of the forum, said would result in area residents paying a nearly 10 percent tax on food purchases, one of the highest rates in the nation.

All of the candidates said they support lowering or eliminating the sales tax on food. Brewer, however, said he thinks policymakers first need to come up with a detailed strategy for how the state would replace that loss of revenue.

Republican and Democratic voters will go to the polls Tuesday, Aug. 7, to select their party’s nominees for governor and other state and congressional offices.