Friday, March 26, 2010

McDonnell - Virginia law protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination not needed

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell continued his war of schizophrenic subtleties against the state's gay community yesterday by claiming that anti-discrimination laws protecting gay and lesbians in Virginia isn't needed:

“I don’t know that we need it based on the numbers that I’ve seen.“

“There really isn’t any rampant discrimination on any basis in Virginia,“ he said. “If you’re going to have a law, it needs to actually address a real problem.“

Since his election into office last year, McDonnell has had a, shall we say, non-friendly relationship with Virginia's gay and lesbian community. It was discovered that in college, he wrote a thesis slamming gays, unwed mothers, and no-fault divorce. McDonnell attended Regent University, a public institution founded by Pat Robertson, who isn't exactly considered a friend of the lgbt community.

While running for office last year, he said that he wouldn't renew the executive order banning discrimination regarding the sexual orientation of state job applicants.

Earlier this year, he issued an executive order that "specifically prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, sex, color, national origin, religion, age, political affiliation, or against otherwise qualified persons with disabilities."

You will notice that omitted from that list are lgbts.

Then Virginia's attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, sent a letter to the state's public colleges and universities claiming that state law prevented them from including lgbts in their non-discrimination policies.

The furor over that was so great that McDonnell, according to Time magazine, issued an executive directive that clarified his earlier executive order, contradicting Cuccinelli's previous statement and specifically prohibiting discrimination "based on factors such as one's sexual orientation."

This new statement about non-discrimination laws not being needed ought to make things very interesting for McDonnell. He is definitely playing a balancing act and it will be a short matter of time before he falls off of the wire.



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2 comments:

  1. There isn't rampant discrimination, except maybe at the Virginia Museum of Natural History, a state agency, where you can get fired for being gay.

    And, when you take the unjust firing to the Supreme Court of Virginia, guess who will argue that gays are not protected from discrimination by VA law? Former Attorney General, now governor McDonnell and current AG Cuccinelli.

    Details explained by attorney Michael Hamar at Bilerico.

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  2. Mykelb8:31 AM

    Guess that dummy doesn't think that the Amendment to Virginia's constitution outlawing my marriage isn't a threat to me in any way. What a hypocrite. He's a liar, a thief (took my tax money then legislated against me), and a snake oil salesman. I wouldn't believe a word out of his mouth.

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