The Other Race Virginians Need to Watch This Year

The following is a cross posting of an op-ed I wrote at LGBTQ Nation that looks at GOP attorney general Mark Obenshain's dishonest effort to paint himself as a moderate.  The man is just as extreme as Ken Cuccinelli and the utterly insane "Bishop" E. W. Jackson.  Here's the piece in its entirety:

Given its off year elections, Virginia is attracting a good deal of attention among political observers.  LGBT Virginians, women and minorities likewise ought to be paying close attention. Why?  Because the Republican statewide ticket — which was nominated at a convention dominated by far right religious extremists and Tea Party fanatics (who usually also identify as “conservative Christians”) — is the most extreme in Virginia’s history.

There has been a great deal of media coverage of the GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli who has a bizarre fixation on reinstating Virginia’s “crimes against nature statute,” is a climate change denier, and who has shown himself to be ethically challenged at best as he has taken gifts and campaign contributions for those who have sought a quid pro quo from the Attorney General’s office, which Cuccinelli currently occupies.

Likewise, there has been plentiful media coverage on Lt. Governor candidate E.W. “Bishop” Jackson who has made off the fall anti-gay statements, insulted civil rights leaders and generally shown himself to inhabit some strange alternate universe from sentient persons.
In fact, Jackson makes AFA’s Bryan Fischer and FRC’s Tony Perkins appear to be fairly rational in comparison.

Lacking in similar coverage has been the GOP nominee for Attorney General, Mark Obenshain, who, if one knows his background and voting record in the Virginia General Assembly is every bit as extreme and – I would argue insane – as Cuccinelli and “Bishop” Jackson.

Despite his extremism as evidenced by his past record, Obenshain has been trying to reinvent himself as a “moderate” and even claimed that he doesn’t support discrimination against anyone (more on this later).
As a recent article in the Virginian Pilot noted, the attorney general race deserves much closer attention than it is currently receiving for several reasons.
First, the next attorney general will help frame the national perception of Virginia, and his name is likely to appear at the top of the 2017 ballot because historically Virginia’s attorney general has run, or resigned to run, for governor in every election, including this one, dating to 1993.
Second, under Virginia law, the Attorney General interprets Virginia’s statutory law and determines which laws meet constitutional muster under both the Virginia Constitution and the United States Constitution.

For example, Obenshain has pledged to continue fighting President Barack Obama’s Affordable Health Care Act (a.k.a. “Obamacare”), either by filing briefs in a pending legal challenge or by filing a new lawsuit.

Also, his Democrat opponent, Mark Herring, has said he wouldn’t defend Virginia’s anti-sodomy statute because it’s clearly unconstitutional while Obenshain will likely seek to defend it despite trying to pretend to be noncommittal.

Like Cuccinelli, Obenshain refuses to recognize the full scope of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Lawrence v. Texas and is so thoroughly under the thumb of the Christofascists at The Family Foundation (an affiliate of Focus on the Family and registered hate group, Family Research Council) that he will no doubt refuse to accept the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuits’s decision striking down Virginia’s sodomy statute for a second time.

Why do I come to this conclusions? Obenshain’s record in the Virginia General Assembly confirms that he is every bit as extreme as Ken Cuccinelli and “Bishop” Jackson.

Here’s an overview of Obenshain’s record:

1.   Obenshain has previously introduced a bill that would have required any woman in Virginia who has a miscarriage without a doctor present, to file a report it within 24 hours to the police or otherwise risk going to jail for a full year.  Obenshain’s bill read in part as follows:

When a fetal death occurs without medical attendance upon the mother at or after the delivery or abortion, the mother or someone acting on her behalf shall, within 24 hours, report the fetal death, location of the remains, and identity of the mother to the local or state police or sheriff’s department of the city or county where the fetal death occurred. No one shall remove, destroy, or otherwise dispose of any remains without the express authorization of law-enforcement officials or the medical examiner. Any person violating the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

For those unfamiliar with Virginia law, a Class 1 misdemeanor cares a 1 year jail sentence and a fine of $2,500.00.

2.  Obenshain has supported a “personhood” bill that would outlaw all abortions and grant full constitutional rights to a fetus from the moment of conception.

3. In 2013 Obenshain sponsored a bill requiring limited types of photo identification as part of the Virginia GOP’s active effort to disenfranchise minority voters. Acceptable forms of ID include a government-issued photo ID that includes their address, a photo ID from a Virginia college or university, or a workplace ID featuring a photo.  Regular Voter ID cards would not be sufficient.

4.  Obenshain has consistently voted against Democratic measures that would assure employment non-discrimination protections for homosexual state employees under Virginia’s anti-discrimination law.

5.  In January, 2013, Obenshain walked off the Senate floor rather than support former Richmond prosecutor Tracy Thorne-Begland, who is openly gay, for a Richmond General District Court judgeship.  In 2012, other GOP extremists in the House of Delagate blocked Thorne-Begland’s appointment but were out maneuvered by the Richmond Circuit Court judges who appointed him on an interim bases after Thorne-Begland received unanimous backing from the five largest mega-law firms based in Virginia.

In short, despite his recent pretenses, Obenshain is anti-gay, anti-minority and anti-women’s rights. 

If Virginians want a quasi-theocracy in Virginia, they can vote for Obenshain and his fellow extremists on the GOP ticket.  If, instead, they believe in the principles of Thomas Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers from Virginia, their choice is clear: vote for Mark Herring for Attorney Genaral, Terry McAuliffe for Governor, and Ralph Northam for Lt. Governor.
 

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GOP Senator Claims Pentagon Policy Allowing Gays To Marry Harms Straight Couples

One of the worse gay haters and homophobes in the United States Senate is GOP Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe who I suspect in truth would favor establishing a Christofascist ruled theocracy in America after an over throw of the U.S. Constitution in substance.  There seems to be no end to the man's anti-gay batshitery.  Now he is claiming that Pentagon policy allowing gay service members to marry is harming heterosexual couples.  Like most of what comes out of Inhofe's mouth its crazy bullshit.  Inhofe over looks one important fact: unlike gays, straights can marry in every state in America.  It's a huge difference. Think Progress looks at this batshitery erruption.  Here are highlights:

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) blasted a proposed Pentagon policy aimed at giving same-sex couples the time to travel to states where they can legally marry on Thursday. Inhofe, who takes great pride in having no LGBT relatives, wrote to Sec. of Defense Chuck Hagel that doing so would amount to “special uncharged leave benefits” for same-sex partners.

Following the Supreme Court’s June ruling striking down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the Department of Defense has been working to update its systems to ensure it treats same-sex marriages equally, as required by the ruling. Since just 13 states and the District of Columbia have statewide marriage equality, the military is reportedly considering granting a few days of uncharged leave to soldiers and sailors who need to travel to a state where they can legally marry.

Inhofe, the ranking minority-party member of Senate Armed Services Committee, objects to the idea, suggesting it is an illegal benefit and that it would amount to discrimination not to offer the same amount of leave to those entering into opposite-sex unions:

Inhofe’s claim that he supports fair and equal treatment seems to conflict with his record. His official Senate website boasts that he has “consistently supported and defended traditional marriage between one man and one woman as a cornerstone to the strength of our society,” and that he strongly opposes “the Obama Administration’s attack on traditional marriage and attempts to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act.” Inhofe voted for the unconstitutional DOMA law in 1996 and co-sponsored a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages.

Of course, if his concern about “disparate treatment” is sincere, the solution is obvious: he should work toward making sure same-sex couples, especially those who serve their country, are free to marry in all 50 states. He could start with his own state of Oklahoma,

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Pat Robertson: Obama Inciting 'Black-On-White Violence'

Regional embarrassment and racist Pat Robertson has let off another explosion of verbal diarrhea.  This time he is blaming Barack Obama for "inciting black-on- white violence."  The data to support this claim?  There is, of course, none.  And its all an delusion in the mind of a man who seems increasingly out of touch with any kind of objective reality who daily panders to the sense of outrage of the white supremacists of the GOP and conservative Christian groups.  These people just cannot get over their hate and bigotry and go off every time they remember a black man is in the White House.  As I have said before, it's a wonder that today's GOP city and county committee meetings don't start with all attendees donning white robes and hoods. And for non-Virginians, it is important that they remember that Robertson is historically the largest GOP donor in Virginia.  Right Wing Watch has these details:

Pat Robertson today, while discussing the shooting of an Australian baseball player in Oklahoma by three teenagers, two of them black and one white, accused President Obama of inciting anti-white violence. The 700 Club host said, “We are having a tremendous amount of this black-on-white violence and I have a feeling that instead of bringing racial harmony, having an African-American president has exacerbated the problem.”
“He seems to be wanting to bring division among people instead of bringing them together; he is one of the most divisive leaders this country has ever had,” Robertson continued. “It just seems he wants to rub the edges raw every chance he gets.” Robertson argued that Obama is trying to divide people by race and class: “There’s always something there to stir up controversy.”
- See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/robertson-obama-inciting-black-white-violence#sthash.InZVuMwo.XNB1TTht.dpuf

Pat Robertson today, while discussing the shooting of an Australian baseball player in Oklahoma by three teenagers, two of them black and one white, accused President Obama of inciting anti-white violence. The 700 Clubhost said, “We are having a tremendous amount of this black-on-white violence and I have a feeling that instead of bringing racial harmony, having an African-American president has exacerbated the problem.”

“He seems to be wanting to bring division among people instead of bringing them together; he is one of the most divisive leaders this country has ever had,” Robertson continued. “It just seems he wants to rub the edges raw every chance he gets.” Robertson argued that Obama is trying to divide people by race and class: “There’s always something there to stir up controversy.”

 

As Blue Virginia reminds us, some of Robertson's other statements include:

Of course, this is the same top Virginia GOP donor who has said: Gays Destroy Society, Want Christians in Jail; that gays are really straights with "chromosomal damage", that Planned Parenthood backs genocide and inspired Hitler, that "Wild" Liberals Support "Society of Death" 

For the record, back in my GOP activist days I got to meet Robertson in person.  In my opinion, he is an arrogant egomaniac who is having a tempestuous love affair with himself.  Obnoxious doesn't even begin to describe him. His mere presence - not to mention Regent University and CBN - are a huge negative for Hampton Roads.

   

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Antonin Scalia Calls Gays an "Invented Minority"

Some describe Antonin Scalia as the "intellectual leader" of the conservative faction on the U. S. Supreme Court.  Candidly, a close minded, bigoted old grump who wants the Constitution to conform to his own prejudices is a more apt description of the man.  Now, speaking a meeting sponsored by the Federalist Society, Scalia is describing and once again arguing  the rights of minorities should be left to the whims - or more correctly, the tyranny - of the majority.  gays as an "invented minority" As I have noted before, the man needs to retire or be removed from the Court.  Here are highlights from Talking Points Memo:

The U.S. Supreme Court is making decisions that should be left to Congress or the people, from wiretapping to “inventing” new classes of minorities, Justice Antonin Scalia said Monday.

In an apparent reference to the court’s recent decisions on gay marriage and benefits for same-sex couples, Scalia said it is not the function of the courts to create exceptions outside the Constitution unless a majority of people agree with them.

“It’s not up to the courts to invent new minorities that get special protections,” Scalia told a packed hotel ballroom in southwestern Montana.

Changes to the Constitution were made to protect minorities and to give women the right to vote, but that’s not how the court operates today, he said.  Rather, a majority of five judges decide issues that should be in the hands of Congress or made through a change to the Constitution.

 Per the Billings Gazette this also:

Scalia, considered an intellectual leader of the Supreme Court’s conservative wing, said the court’s justices are no better suited to decide what rights ought to exist than is “Joe Sixpack.”

“These aren’t questions for lawyers,” he said. “These are the kind of questions that society debates and decides.”

Many of his comments centered on his cause of interpreting the “original meaning” of the U.S. Constitution and its amendments, which he said spell out clearly defined rights that should not be embellished by the courts.

“I’m just pointing out what happens when you don’t stick to the original meaning of the Constitution,” he said. “The court makes an amazing amount of decisions that ought to be made by the people.”

Let's be clear, Scalia believes in the tyranny of the majority - unless, of course, it differs with his own bigotry.

 

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LGBT Supporters Turn the Tables on Anti-Gay Franklin Graham in Iceland

You have to laugh sometimes when you see an anti-gay bigot finding the tables turned on them by their own ground rules.  A case in point is Franklin Graham (at left in the image above) who but for his famous father would likely be a nobody.  But, in true Christofascist form, Franklin Graham saw plentiful numbers of ignorant and uninformed people that he could shake down and in the process live the good life.  He also bought in to gay bashing and  spreading the typical "godly Christian" lies about gays.  Graham has scheduled two appearance in Iceland where he would undoubtedly spew his usual anti-gay poison, but it appears his efforts have been foiled by his own effort to fill the audience.  LGBT activists and supporters have "sold out" the free tickets and Graham will potentially speak to an empty venue.  That's right, the pro-LGBT crowd has no intention of actually going to hear Graham and listening to his snake oil.  I love it!  Here are highlights from Gay Star News:

Pro-LGBT Icelanders have booked hundreds of tickets to see anti-gay US evangelist Franklin Graham – but few have any intention of actually going to see him.

Graham will be in Iceland for events on 28 and 29 September for the evangelical Christian Festival of Hope but many Icelanders have expressed concern about his homophobic views.

In May of 2012 Graham released a statement accusing US President Barack Obama of shaking ‘his fist at the same God who created and defined marriage.’

Opponents of the visit discovered they could book up to four tickets to both events for free online, while by contacting organizers they could book for groups of 20 or more, and decided to book out the event and then not go in protest of Graham’s message.

‘The seats will be left empty and I hope that more people were able to get tickets … so that [no] people attend this ridiculous meeting.’

According to the International Business Times, software developer Elvar Thormar posted on Facebook that he had been able to reserve as many as 500 tickets to the event despite having no intention of showing up.

Both events that Graham will speak at had sold out by Friday.

Iceland is one of the most LGBT friendly countries in the world and Icelandic voters elected Johanna Sigurdardottir – the world’s first openly gay or lesbian head of state - in 2009. She retired in April of this year.

Reykjavik mayor Jón Gnarr recently threatened to cut off political and cultural ties with Moscow over Russia’s treatment of LGBTs.

I'm sorry, but in my view, tawdry whores have more integrity and moral virtue than professional Christians like Franklin Graham who have hate and bigotry as their principle stock in trade.  In my opinion, he is little more than a con artist.

Pro-LGBT Icelanders have booked hundreds of tickets to see anti-gay US evangelist Franklin Graham – but few have any intention of actually going to see him.
Graham will be in Iceland for events on 28 and 29 September for the evangelical Christian Festival of Hope but many Icelanders have expressed concern about his homophobic views.
In May of 2012 Graham released a statement accusing US President Barack Obama of shaking ‘his fist at the same God who created and defined marriage.’
- See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/icelanders-book-out-event-anti-gay-us-evangelist-protest-his-views160813#sthash.VBnzNUBS.48mlxoU7.dpuf

Pro-LGBT Icelanders have booked hundreds of tickets to see anti-gay US evangelist Franklin Graham – but few have any intention of actually going to see him.
Graham will be in Iceland for events on 28 and 29 September for the evangelical Christian Festival of Hope but many Icelanders have expressed concern about his homophobic views.
In May of 2012 Graham released a statement accusing US President Barack Obama of shaking ‘his fist at the same God who created and defined marriage.’
- See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/icelanders-book-out-event-anti-gay-us-evangelist-protest-his-views160813#sthash.VBnzNUBS.48mlxoU7.dpuf

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Cumulus Media To Drop Rush Limbaugh (and Sean Hannity)

One of the loudest voices for bigotry and racism on the airwaves is Rush Limbaugh.  Another force for hate and division is Sean Hannity.  Now, both have been dropped by Cumulus, the second-largest operator of radio stations in the country.  It will be interesting to see how Limbaugh, a loud mouthed jerk in my view who talks about protecting the "sanctity of marriage" while on his own fourth marriage, tries to spin this obvious set back.  Here are details from Politico:

In a major shakeup for the radio industry, Cumulus Media, the second-biggest broadcaster in the country, is planning to drop both Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity from its stations at the end of the year, an industry source told POLITICO on Sunday.

Cumulus has decided that it will not renew its contracts with either host, the source said, a move that would remove the two most highly rated conservative talk personalities from more than 40 Cumulus channels in major markets.

The decision comes after negotiations between Cumulus and Premiere Networks, the division of Clear Channel that distributes Limbaugh and Hannity's shows, broke down due to disagreements over the cost of the distribution rights, the source said. Cumulus is known to drive a hard bargain on costs, and Clear Channel is known to seek top dollar for big names.

Premiere, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday night, is expected to carry Limbaugh and Hannity on stations in many of the markets where they are currently signed with Cumulus, should the negotiations not go through. A spokesperson for Limbaugh was not immediately available for comment; Hannity did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Back in May, a source close to Limbaugh told POLITICO that the host was considering ending his affiliation agreement with Cumulus because CEO Lew Dickey was blaming the company's advertising losses on Limbaugh's controversial remarks about Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student. On an earnings call two days later, Dickey reported a $2.4 million first-quarter decline in revenue related to talk programming, which he attributed, indirectly, to Limbaugh's remarks about Fluke. 

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Michele Bachmann Ethics Probe Deepens

I find Michele Bachmann to be a foul individual who worships bigotry and ignorance.  And like so many of the far right who wear feigned religiosity on their sleeves and make a public display of professed faith, the woman is a phony who thinks herself above the rules that govern others (she reminds me of Ken Cuccinelli).  Thus, it is delicious to see that the Congressional ethics probe into her failed presidential campaign is going to be extended even as the FBI conducts its own investigation of Bachmann.  The suspicion grows that her announced retirement may have been an effort to "get out of Dodge" before the other shoe dropped.  Here are excerpts from Politicususa:  

Rep. Michele Bachmann might not make it to ‘retirement,’ in 2014 as the House Ethics Committee has launched an investigation into possible ethics violations surrounding her 2012 presidential run.

[W]hat it means is that the Office of Congressional Ethics found something that is worthy of investigation by the full House Ethics Committee. It is not surprising that they found something. The FBI is already investigating Bachmann and her presidential campaign for secret payments made to Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson in exchange for his help in support in the 2012 Iowa caucuses. 

The suspicion has long been that Bachmann’s “retirement” was done in order to head off the federal investigation, the Iowa state investigation, and the House Ethics Committee investigation. Bachmann thought that if she “retired” maybe these legal issues would go away, and allow her to make a political comeback in a couple of years. This is the reason why Bachmann refuses to close the door on potentially running for office again someday.

Bachmann could be looking at expulsion. However, expulsion requires a 2/3 vote in the House, and it is unlikely that enough Republicans would vote to kick her out. The other penalties like censure, reprimand, or a fine are relatively minor, and only require a majority vote.

It looks like Michele Bachmann’s plan to make this all go away by quitting, oops, I mean “retiring” is not working out the way that she wanted it too. If it is revealed and proven that Bachmann was directly connected to the crimes committed, losing her House seat could be the least of her problems. 

I hope the woman goes down big time.  She needs to be driven into the political wilderness permanently.

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Mark Obenshain Tries to Pretend He's a Moderate

One thing that always strikes me about self-anointed "godly Christians" and their puppets - is prostitutes a better term? - within the Republican Party s the abandon with which they lie and believe the public is too stupid to check out their current claims with past actions and voting records.  This phenomenon is glaringly apparent in this year's GOP statewide slate which takes dishonesty and insanity to new levels for Virginia.  Mark Obenshain (pictured at left in the photo above), the GOP Attorney General candidate, is actively trying to market himself as a moderate who supports "inclusive policies" even though his political career has been diametrically opposed to the positions he now pretends to hold.  The Richmond Times Dispatch looks at Obenshain's snake oil campaign.  Here are highlights:

Sen. Mark D. Obenshain, the Republican nominee for attorney general, said Thursday that he wants to run an inclusive campaign and work across the aisle in order to appeal to a wider base of voters.

Obenshain, from Harrisonburg, is known for his conservative voting record that he has accumulated since he was first elected to the state Senate in 2003.

He drew flak for drafting legislation in 2009 that would have required women who had miscarriages without medical attendance to report it to authorities within 24 hours.

Obenshain has also consistently voted against Democratic measures that would assure protections for homosexual state employees under Virginia’s anti-discrimination law.

Obenshain recently has also portrayed himself as an advocate for protecting state employees and faculties from discrimination based on their sexual orientation — a position which earned him criticism from Democrats and gay-rights groups doubting his sincerity because of his voting record.

“Mark Obenshain can try all he wants to run away from his extreme ticket, but actions speak louder than words,” said Ashley Bauman, spokeswoman for the Democratic Party of Virginia.

 Obenshain said he doesn’t expect miracles, “but I am going to be there, because I want people to be there and understand that my message is an inclusive message.”

My response? Liar, liar pants on fire.  Obeshain is no different than Cuccinelli and Jackson.  He's a liar seeking to dupe Virginia voters.  He needs to be defeated in November.

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Antonin Scalia: The Supreme Court Mullah

As we await the rulings today in Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor it's worthwhile to look at a piece in Slate that examines the bigotry of Justice Antonin Scalia who, in my opinion, becomes more insane and unfit for a position on the Court with each passing day.  The man cares nothing for the rights and lives of others - as is the norm for the Christofascists - and would seemingly be better placed among the mullahs in Tehran or conservative regions of Pakistan.  Here are some article highlights that follow up on Scalia's rant on "morality" last week in North Carolina:

In a speech last week titled “Mullahs of the West: Judges as Moral Arbiters,” Justice Antonin Scalia told the North Carolina Bar Association that the court has no place acting as a “judge moralist” in issues better left to the people. Since judges aren’t qualified—or constitutionally authorized—to set moral standards, he argued, the people should decide what’s morally acceptable.

But does Scalia, whose quarter-century on the bench has marked him as the court’s moral scold for his finger-wagging views on social issues, have a coherent understanding of what it means to say something is or isn’t moral, and of morality’s proper role in the law?

Scalia would have you believe it’s liberal, pro-gay sympathizers who are imposing their own brand of moral laxity on the nation, and unconstitutionally using the courts to do it. His angry dissent in the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas case ending sodomy bans—decided 10 years ago this week—blasted the court for embracing “a law-profession culture that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda [which is] directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct.”

“Countless judicial decisions and legislative enactments,” he wrote, “have relied on the ancient proposition that a governing majority's belief that certain sexual behavior is ‘immoral and unacceptable’ constitutes a rational basis for regulation.”

Yet as Sandra Day O’Connor pointed out in her concurring opinion in Lawrence, that’s not actually true. At least when you’re singling out a group for separate treatment. “We have never held that moral disapproval, without any other asserted state interest, is a sufficient rationale under the Equal Protection Clause to justify a law that discriminates among groups of persons.”

He defends the people’s right to legislate their belief that some forms of sex are “immoral and unacceptable,” to oppose, by law, “a lifestyle that they believe to be immoral and destructive,” and to pass public indecency statutes to protect “order and morality.”

If what’s really at issue are acts that threaten safety, health, and order, why do people like Scalia keep insisting that mere moral disapproval, rather than preventing harm, should be a constitutionally legitimate basis to limit people’s rights?  The entire anti-gay movement has gotten this memo. Which is why arguments that gay people are sick, disgusting and all-around morally bad have yielded, since the 1990s, to arguments alleging that gays threaten to cause concrete harm to American families and institutions.

Scalia seems to reduce morality to feelings and tastes alone. He wants judges to get out of the way and respect that “people may feel that their disapprobation of homosexual conduct is strong enough” to pass laws against them. For him, it was the very “impossibility of distinguishing homosexuality from other traditional ‘morals’ offenses” that allowed the court to ban sodomy prior to Lawrence. But homosexuality is distinguishable from other morals “offenses.” Assisted suicide, incest, adultery, pornography—all these arguably cause some form of harm to living creatures, while two women loving each other just doesn’t.

What we should no longer be able to get away with in the 21^st century is calling something immoral just because we don’t like it. Genuine moral judgment is not reducible to whatever people feel, what they like or don’t like. (Isn’t that what lax liberals are alleged to believe?) Morality is not just whatever views a majority has long held, and it’s not simply what you learned on your mother’s knee or whatever it says in your faith’s scripture. Moral belief is a grounded judgment about what harms or helps living things. Yet somehow, homosexuality’s become just about the only thing left that people get to call immoral without every explaining why.

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Cuccinelli Asks Supreme Court to Uphold Virginia's Sodomy Statute

Ken Cuccinelli's gubernatorial campaign claims that Cuccinelli, a/k/a Kookinelli, is focused on jobs and issues that matter to most Virginians.  You'd never know that based on his request filed today for the U. S. Supreme Court which struck down for a second time recently by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, the most conservative Circuit Court of Appeals in America (it was struck down the first time by the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003 that ruled a similar Texas statute to be unconstitutional).  

In his ludicrous explanation for his appeal, Kookinelli claims that the sodomy statute is key to prosecuting sex crimes even though numerous other statutes give prosecutors plenty of bases for prosecuting wrongdoers.  No what's special about the sodomy statute is that it criminalizes any form of sex that isn't engaged in via the so-called missionary position.  It is part and parcel with the Christofascist agenda that sex should never be enjoyable and certainly should never depart from their rigid - might we also say frigid if we think of sodomy statute supporter, Victoria Cobb, president of The Family Foundation? - views that sex is only for procreation and one had better not like it.  The other reason Kookinelli lusts to keep the sodomy statute on the books is that it imposes far higher penalties on "deviant" sex crimes than the rest of the panoply of laws available to prosecutors.  Here are details from the Virginian Pilot on Kookinelli's appeal (which will no doubt send the far right crowd into near orgasms since they can't have them during sex):

Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli on Tuesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold Virginia's anti-sodomy law, arguing that a lower court misinterpreted the scope of the justices' 2003 decision invalidating a similar law in Texas.

In a 2-1 decision in March, a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared that Virginia's law against oral and anal sex is unconstitutional. [The 4th Circuit also refused Kookinelli's request for a rehearing en banc]

Virginia's so-called "crimes against nature" law was the basis for a 47-year-old man's conviction of criminal solicitation for allegedly demanding oral sex from a 17-year-old girl. In the appeal, Cuccinelli claims the Supreme Court's Lawrence v. Texas decision applied only to sex acts involving consenting adults, not those between an adult and a minor.

Claire Guthrie Gastanaga, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia, said she was disappointed that Cuccinelli chose to appeal the ruling.  "I think that's a waste of the state's resources," she said. "By appealing, he's trying to breathe life into a law that is clearly unconstitutional."

The appeals court's ruling came in the case of William Scott MacDonald, who was convicted of violating a Virginia law making it a felony for any adult to order a person under age 18 to commit a felony. MacDonald claimed his conviction for that offense was improper because the underlying felony was based on an unconstitutional law. The appeals court agreed.

Gastanaga said that rather than appeal the 4th Circuit's decision, Cuccinelli should work with the General Assembly to draft a constitutional law protecting older minors.

The decision to appeal is certain to provide campaign fodder for Democrats who already have accused Cuccinelli and his GOP ticket mates of pursuing an anti-gay, socially divisive agenda.

And lest we forget how virulently anti-gay Kookinelli is (despite persistent rumors that, gasp, he may have violated the sodomy statute himself in the past) , the Virginian Pilot also reports on Cuccinelli's brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in the gay marriage case to be decided tomorrow.  Here are story excerpts:

Cuccinelli led a group of 19 Republican attorneys general in filing a 55-page brief with the court in late January opposing legal recognition of gay marriage. In one passage, their brief seeks to undermine the notion that if same-sex couples can be parents, they should also be legally allowed to get married:

"Responsible parenting is not a justification for same-sex couple marriage, as distinguished from recognition of any other human relationships. It is instead a rationale for eliminating marriage as government recognition of a limited set of relationships. Once the natural limits that inhere in the relationship between a man and a women can no longer sustain the definition of marriage, the conclusion that follows is that any group of adults would have an equal claim to marriage."

Kookinelli is a flaming asshole and, based on the rumors that come my way, a hypocrite.  My offer stands: If someone will come forward with reasonable proof that Kookinelli is another Ed Schrock or Larry Craig and sign a sworn affidavit affirming the information, I will happily do all I can to take his sorry ass down.  If you don't believe me, ask Ed Schrock or former "ex-gay" poster boy Michael Johnston, if you can find either of them.   All it will take is believable evidence and a detailed sworn affidavit.

 

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