Stop the GOP From Taking Virginia Backwards

The title of this post sums up the basic message that the Falls Church News Press makes in an editorial that looks at the prospect of a GOP victory in the upcoming state wide elections in Virginia. Virginia's GLBT citizens already know that Virginia is not a diversity friendly state in many ways. Should Taliban Bob McDonnell and Ken Kook Cuccinelli be elected, the whole world will likely understand that reality. And some in Northern Virginia worry what kind of message that will send to progressive businesses and the world. Do we really need a governor who wants women at home barefoot and pregnant, gays locked in the closet, and yes, blacks who know their place? If you do, then Taliban Bob's your man. As for Cuccinelli, the man is a freaking nut case and I shudder at the thought of him in the attorney general's office. As an ultra-conservative Catholic, Cuccinelli like believes that the Spanish Inquisition represented the Church at its best. Here are some editorial highlights:

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It would be a terrible shame if, after a decade of progress in statewide elections for more progressive and inclusive values, the Commonwealth of Virginia next month were to take a reactionary lurch back toward its unsavory, intolerant past by electing the GOP's gubernatorial candidate, Bob McDonnell, in three weeks.We are alarmed by evidence from our own region of Northern Virginia that, barring a sharp change in local attitudes, this might happen.

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Virginia's success in being ranked again this year as the best state in the nation for doing business would be placed in serious jeopardy if a right-wing anti-social-inclusion candidate takes over as governor. The high-tech industries that continue to pile into Northern Virginia will suddenly think twice about their ability to hire and retain the best talent in an environment of perceived prejudice and bigotry.
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Nothing could kill a deal faster for a progressive high tech or industrial employer than to learn the state luring him just elected a protégé of right wing televangelist Pat Robertson, who has justified the contents of his law school thesis, written at age 34, calling women who work outside the home a detriment to society. He has a long record in the Virginia state legislature of voting against equal pay for women and for improved child care, in keeping with that philosophical view.

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[McDonnell] touts his eight years' service on the board of Robertson's Regent University, which has a policy asserting that "God instituted and defined the family as the primary civil institution of civil governance, designating a specific authority structure within the home," derived from the Biblical admonition, "Wives, submit to your husbands."

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McDonnell's latest revelation came in remarks to a Lynchburg newspaper's editorial board Tuesday stating that if elected he would not renew an executive order by Virginia's last two governors which bans discrimination based on sexual orientation for state job applicants. It is a matter of considerable urgency that McDonnell lose on Nov. 3.

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As for the "apathy and disinterest" in the election observed by the editorial board, I continue to blame a great deal of it on President Obama and the Congressional Democrats who have delivered largely nothing since taking office last January. What's the point of electing Democrats if they don't do anything and allow policy to be determined by the GOP anyway?