Mark D. Obenshain, Ken Cuccinelli & E.W. Jackson
In choosing candidates for the 2013 gubernatorial election, the Republican Party of Virginia has decided to go hard right.
“This is the most conservative Republican ticket in the history of Virginia,” famed University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato told New York Times columnist Thomas B. Edsall. And when you consider that the Old Dominion was not only the capital of the Confederacy but also the birthplace of the strategy known as “massive resistance” to civil rights and school integration, that’s going some.
As they run for office, it might be a good idea for the candidates to bone up on a little history.
The head of the ticket is current state attorney general Ken Cuccinelli. When he was running for that office in 2009 he declared, “My view is that homosexual acts, not homosexuality, but homosexual acts are wrong. They’re intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law-based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that.”
As I recall, the idea of natural law as the basis for the social contract was first brought into American politics by Cuccinelli’s fellow Virginian Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in the Declaration of Independence “that all men are created equal,” at the same time that his personal economy was based on the ownership of more than a hundred slaves.
Speaking of slavery, Cuccinelli supported his vociferous battle against abortion rights by saying, “It was Christians who led the fight against slavery, and now years later it’s Christians who are on point fighting abortion.”
Let’s forget the principle of separation of church and state for a moment and concentrate on the statement itself. This is like saying it was Christians who made baseball a viable sport, or without Muslims, there would be no Islamic terrorism. I guess it was all atheists and Jews who led the fight for secession so the southern states could keep their slaves.
And then there’s the candidate for lieutenant governor, the Reverend E.W. Jackson, attorney and former Marine, who states, “I know. . . people say, well, ‘It’s unfair to associate homosexuality with pedophilia or some of these other perversions.’ But I believe that there is a direct connection, because what they really want is absolute sexual freedom.”
Technically, Jackson is correct. There is a direct connection between homosexuality and pedophilia. There is an equally strong connection between heterosexuality and pedophilia. And the overwhelming percentage of rapes and sexual assaults are committed by heterosexuals, but I don’t see him trying to outlaw that preference.
He further characterizes gays and lesbians: “Their minds are perverted, they’re frankly very sick people psychologically, mentally and emotionally and they see everything through the lens of homosexuality. When they talk about love they’re not talking about love, they’re talking about homosexual sex.”
Now, the Reverend Jackson happens to be black. I will not call him by the more common current terms because he himself says, “I am not an African-American. I am an American.” Fair enough. But it is interesting to note that not too long ago in this self-same state of Virginia, arguments similar to Jackson’s anti-gay rationale were being used to enforce laws against the intermarriage of blacks and whites. It took a unanimous vote of the United States Supreme Court in 1967’s Loving v. Virginia to overturn the state’s miscegenation laws.
Fortunately for Cuccinelli, Jackson, et al, the Democrats have fielded about the weakest candidate anyone can think of in Terry McAuliffe, and as Cuccinelli himself observes, “Part of this process is just letting Virginia voters get comfortable with us.”
We’ll leave that one alone. But not being a Virginia resident, here’s why I care about this election. If you field candidates who don’t understand the distinction between personal belief and the principle of equal protection, how are law and justice to be upheld? And if you don’t understand when your own declarations are belied by your own state’s ugly history, you are likely to carry that intolerant history into the present day.
Separation of church and state comes from Christianity via Judaism. It’s the, “render unto Caesar” thing. So does almost everything attributed to the Enlightenment. Benjamin Wiker in his book, “Worshipping the State” details the history.
As for homosexuality, there are those who know they are from a young age and others, particularly women who chose to become involved in a same-sex relationship. What has already occurred is artificial homosexuality.
Judaism has nothing concerning female homosexuality, it’s focus was on the predatory nature of the male sex drive and its various manifestations. It functions to channel it into a monogamous relationship with a woman. Men collect women. Personally, one is quite enough. For my best friend in his hayday, 3 in a night (separately) was his norm. Too much for me.
All states should go hard right because that’s what it going to take to put this country back on track. There is no separation of church and state in the Constitution. The Constitution says for the state to stay out of the churches business. This tolerance for all things ungodly, having to always be politically correct so as not to offend anyone is bringing this country to destruction. There is no such thing as freedom without SELF restraint and any country who abandons God will find themselves abandoned. We don’t need more government, we need people using some common sense. Those same people fighting for gun bans, supposedly for the safety of the children, are the same people who strongly support Abortion and oppose the death penalty. Liberals expect that other’s should support them without question, but they have a double standard on almost any issue. I agree, Americans should vote for Conservative and Christian candidates.
It’s a bit hard to understand how people who do have the choice would just vote against their own rights. If they think they’re separated from minorities whose rights they want to see limited, I think, that’s naive. You can’t make yourself privileged by restricting the rights of other groups, this way you just create one more precedent of restricting human rights approved at the state level; that reflects everyone directly.
I wish Virginia luck with this election, from Russian Federation. Intolerant history brought to the present day is not a pretty sight.
The U.S. as well as other countries are chock full of hypocrisy. It’s too bad these people don’t visit libraries and get Reference materials rather than fiction section. Racism runs rampant, sexism runs rampant, biases of every type.
Truth is every time I see those “white power” type people, I beg for a DNA test just to see how “White” these people are.
But, it’s summer time, and let’s face it. No one wants to advertise their biases, or their complete way of thinking. That doesn’t sell tourism, and it doesn’t bring in funds for campaigns.