I remember being in a parking lot in Northern Virginia at a conference some eight years back and seeing a bumper-sticker that read: "Turn Virginia Blue." And, having then been a resident of the Commonwealth for the better part of 20 years, thinking: "It will never happen."
But lo and behold! Mark Warner's sensible and smart governance made Virginia one of the best managed states in the country, Jim Webb's superb campaign gave us a Democratic Senator and hard work and incredible organization made it possible for me to jump up and down and cheer when Virginia went for President Obama last November.
Now, sadly, it seems the Commonwealth is about to throw it all away.
It's not just that Creigh Deeds has run what many people believe to be a poor campaign, it's also that, as a result, extraordinarily right-wing politicians may also assume higher office: including, incredibly, Ken Cuccinelli, who may become Virginia's next Attorney General. The Attorney General, of course, is the highest law enforcement officer in the Commonwealth. But Mr. Cuccinelli doesn't believe that laws he disagrees with need to be enforced.
Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican candidate for attorney general in Virginia, recently made remarks to a newspaper in which he said, "Homosexual acts are wrong." He declined to commit to a nondiscrimination policy enforced by former attorney general Bob McDonnell, now the Republican candidate for governor.
(snip)
"My view is that homosexual acts, not homosexuality, but homosexual acts are wrong," said Cuccinelli, according to The Virginian-Pilot. "They’re intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law-based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that. ... They don’t comport with natural law. I happen to think that it represents (to put it politely; I need my thesaurus to be polite) behavior that is not healthy to an individual and in aggregate is not healthy to society."
Source ~ The Advocate
And if you find these comments insufficently antediluvian (or disgusting) enough, consider what he said about the United States being a "natural-law based country." It isn't. Except of course, unless you are an acolyte of Clarence Thomas.
Consider what Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe had to say about this topic after Clarence Thomas’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 1991:
Clarence Thomas, judging from his speeches and scholarly writings, seems instead to believe judges should enforce the Founders' natural law philosophy -- the inalienable rights "given man by his Creator" -- which he maintains is revealed most completely in the Declaration of Independence. He is the first Supreme Court nominee in 50 years to maintain that natural law should be readily consulted in constitutional interpretation.
But the last time a Supreme Court majority invoked natural rights theories, some 80 years ago, the Court held that the Constitution protects such economic rights as the "liberty" of employers to conduct business free of health and safety regulations and minimum wage laws.
Libertarians, though, can take little solace: Natural law has most often been cited to justify moralistic intrusions on personal choice -- as illustrated by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger's appeal to "Judeo-Christian moral and ethical standards" in Bowers v. Hardwick, a 1986 case condemning oral and anal sex between consenting adults.
Source ~ The New York Times
So, OK ~ gays and Lesbians are not protected by "natural law" and therefore should not have any rights in Virginia.
Apparently, "regular" women shouldn’t either.
Motorists in Virginia now have a way to express their pro-life views and support adoption and abortion alternatives at the same time. A new state law allowing the purchase of Choose Life license plates went into effect yesterday and proceeds from the sales of the plates support those pro-life efforts.
Virginia drivers pay an additional $25 to get the yellow affinity plates and $15 of that fee, after the first 1,000 plates are sold, goes to Heartbeat International to provide women with tangible pregnancy help and options.
Senator Ken Cuccinelli was the sponsor of the Choose Life plate bill that pro-abortion Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine reluctantly signed in March.
Source ~ LifeNews I use their name because it’s theirs. The "life" they support apparently does not encompass the lives of actual adult women (and girls) whose lives could be permanently altered (if not ended) by unwanted pregnancies.
But who are they (or I) to complain, when the "lives" of blastocysts are now supported by Virginia License Plates? After all, $15 of a fee charged by the Commonwealth for these plates now goes to Heartbeat International.
From their website:
Heartbeat International® is the first network of pro-life pregnancy resource centers in the U.S. and the most expansive in the world. Since 1971, Heartbeat has supported, strengthened and started more than 1,100 pregnancy centers in 42 countries to provide alternatives to abortion
Heartbeat International
Have you ever visited one of these "Pregnancy Resource Centers"? I have. I did so while researching a story on them back when I was a newspaper reporter. This is what I remember:
The place had fake wood-paneling and shabby carpet. There were "exam rooms" which were, in fact, no more than changing rooms where you could pee into a cup. While you waited for the results of the pregnancy test, you were ushered into another exam-sized room and asked to watch a VHS (this was, admittedly, some time ago) about pregnancy and abortion that was chock full of misinformation, lies and scare tactics, including, for starters, utterly false information about the risks of dying from a safe legal abortion vs. risks from dying from a pregnancy, as well as false information about blastocysts and embryos.
But, of course, that’s not all:
If elected, he promises to use the state attorney general's office as a platform to advance his causes, such as reducing Virginia's divorce rate and battling with Washington over laws or regulations that he thinks violate states' rights. His idea of a compelling issue was championing a measure last year to make it easier to deny unemployment benefits to immigrant workers fired for not speaking English.
(snip)
Cuccinelli says he wants to use the attorney general's position in new ways to promote long-term changes. Antipollution regulations could be a target, as Cuccinelli told College of William and Mary students Sept. 20, "The environmental movement has been used more than any other movement in the last 25 years as a shell for people who have a different agenda, and that is to destroy and get rid of capitalism." (His campaign declined to comment for this article, saying, "We don't respond to opinion-based journalism." )
(snip)
Opposition to illegal immigration, which has barely come up in the governor's contest, is important to Cuccinelli. Last year, he proposed to deny citizenship to children born in the United States if their parents weren't here legally.
Source ~ Washington Post
And this is the man currently leading in the polls to become Virginia’s next Attorney General -- the chief law enforcement officer of the Commonwealth.
Please watch:
In line, or even perhaps to the right of, current gubernatorial front-runner Bob McDonnell.
If I wanted to live in a theocracy, I wouldn’t live in the United States. Please help!
We here in Virginia would greatly prefer having former prosecutor and current Virginia Delegate Steve Shannon as Attorney General.
I will match any donations made to his campaign tonight -- thank you!