Will McDonald Derail Regulations to Allow Gay Adoptions?

Over the weekend I noted how Maggie Gallagher and the Christofascists at inappropriately named Liberty Counsel (which wants liberty only for right wing Christians) were beside themselves over the fact that the Virginia Department of Social Services is considering new regulations which would clearly allow Virginia LGBT citizens to adopt and be foster parents. Never mind that there is a pressing need for stable homes for children. It's all about stigmatizing gays and keeping us third or fourth class citizens. Heterosexual parents can be totally unfit in the eyes of these hate merchants since all that matters is that the sleep with someone of the opposite gender. Now, Governor Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell must decide whether or not to get involved in the fray. If he derails the regulations, he will be hard put to paint himself as a moderate conservative in his ambitions for higher office. If he doesn't, the Bible beaters will go into a gay hating frenzy. Sadly, my money is on McDonnell seeking to appease the anti-gay hate merchants at The Family Foundation and, of course, within the Catholic Church. leadership. If the regulations are derailed, it will be but another example of why LGBT Virginians who can do so ought to seriously consider leave Virginia - taking their money and other transportable assets with them. The Washington Post looks at McDonnell's dilemma. Here are highlights:
*
Republican Gov. Robert F. McDonnell is considering whether to try to derail proposed regulations developed by his Democratic predecessor that would for the first time allow gay couples to adopt children in Virginia.
*
McDonnell has less than two weeks to act on the regulations that would force state-licensed private and church-run agencies to allow unmarried couples — heterosexual or homosexual — to adopt children. Conservatives, including Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William), are lobbying McDonnell to ask the State Board of Social Services to kill the proposal because they do not think it is healthy for gay couples to raise children.
*
McDonnell alienated gay rights activists shortly after taking office when he excluded sexual orientation from an executive order that barred discrimination in the state workforce, a break in tradition from his Democratic predecessors.
*
Later, when Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II advised the state’s public colleges to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, McDonnell further angered gay rights activists when, in an attempt to quell the matter, he issued a nonbinding “executive directive” prohibiting discrimination in the state workforce, including on the basis of sexual orientation.
*
McDonnell must make his recommendation to the State Board of Social Services, a nine-member panel in which all but four members are holdovers from his Democratic predecessor, by April 16. . . . Kaine, who is expected to run for U.S. Senate next year, proposed the change to the regulations in November 2009, less than two months before he left the office to become the full-time chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
*
Victoria Cobb, president of the Family Foundation, said she contacted the governor’s office and is confident that the administration plans to recommend the removal of the language.
*
Cobb said her organization, which is against gay couples adopting children, opposes the regulations more strongly on the basis of religious freedom. She said private adoption agencies deserve to have the ability to screen prospective parents based on the agency’s beliefs.
*
Jeff Caruso, executive director of the Virginia Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the state’s Catholic dioceses, said his organization also opposes the new regulations on the basis of religious freedom.