Click image to enlarge.The race for Virginia's 6th Senatorial district is apparently getting very nasty in a major way and is all too common, LGBT citizens are the Republican candidates favorite boogie man. The incumbent, Senator Ralph Northam - a physician and a Vietnam medical corps veteran - has worked for 4 years to address the needs of ALL of his constituents, including LGBT Virginians, while his opponent, Ben Loyola, could best be described as Kool-Aid drinking extremist endorsed by the most hateful politicians in Virginia (e.g., Ken Cuccinelli and of course, Scott Rigell who himself was endorsed by an anti-gay hate group) and the Tea Party. Not surprisingly, Loyola's website blathers about his "family values" and support for marriage. Indeed, Loyola states proudly that he "believes that marriage is a sacred institution reserved by God to only exist between one man and one woman."
Thus, it's not surprising that just days before the election next Tuesday a mysterious anti-gay flyer - see the image above - filled with lies and discredited allegations (indeed, it looks like the source of the "facts" were Paul Cameron and Peter LaBarbera) has shown up at homes across the 6th District that attacks Ralph Northam for recognizing that LGBT Virginians are entitled to the same civil rights as other Virginians. Those close to the Northam campaign have stated that Northam's office is "about to tie it to his [Loyola's] staff" and described the flyer as "despicable." Of course it is despicable. But sadly, this is what is the norm in today's Republican Party, especially here in the backwater called Virginia.
Naturally, Loyola's office is feigning ignorance and pretends to be shocked by the flyer. Even though Loyola likely believes every lie in the flyer. Loyola and those like him are the reason I left the Republican Party years ago. Truth, honor, integrity and even a shred of decency and the Republican Party are now mutually exclusive.
I sincerely hope that every voter in the 6th senatorial district or who has friends and family members who live in the district will get out next Tuesday and vote for Ralph Northam and send Loyola back into political obscurity.
3 comments:
Mr Hamar,
Sorry, you are mistaken. This is not the norm in the Norfolk GOP.
I have been involved in Norfolk campaigns for a number of years, and this type of thing always shows up in the last 5-7 days before election day.
Your accusations here are baseless. Most of us have no time for childish stunts like this, and it only creates havoc at a time when we are all focused on the tasks as hand that need to be done in the closing days of any election.
I would be more likely to believe this is a Democrat stunt or campaign tactic to get some press attention to do what you normally do and try to cast all Republicans as bigots.
Pam Brown
Chairman, Republican Party of Norfolk
Pam,
I beg to differ. As a former 8 year member of the GOP City Committee for Virginia Beach i know for a fact that this type of nasty attack is the natural outcome of the degeneration of the GOP into a quasi-religious party where gays are a favored bogey man. Loyola's website speaks for itself and makes it clear that his agenda is to keep LGBT citizens 4th class citizens. And to do that, one of the required elements is to depict the targets of discrimination as deserving of discrimination and mistreatment. The parallels between what the "Christian" Right and it's political whores in the GOP direct toward gays and what the Nazis did to Jews is frightening.
The truth may hurt, but it doesn't make it any less the truth. The recent debacle with the Loudoun County GOP and materials that were disseminated illustrates that this type of garbage is the norm. Oh, and let's not forget that racist trash that was circulated by Republicans last year during the Rigell/Nye contest.
My family was once 100% Republican. Because of the Christianist/Tea Party takeover of the GOP, no one in the family considers them self to be a Republican. We may not be Republicans, but we sure as Hell aren't Republicans.
For the misrepresentation of Dr Collins' work, see
Dr Throckmorton's Site.
From an e-mail by Dr Collins:
The words quoted by NARTH all come from the Appendix to my book “The Language of God” (pp. 260-263), but have been juxtaposed in a way that suggests a somewhat different conclusion that I intended. I would urge anyone who is concerned about the meaning to refer back to the original text.
The evidence we have at present strongly supports the proposition that there are hereditary factors in male homosexuality — the observation that an identical twin of a male homosexual has approximately a 20% likelihood of also being gay points to this conclusion, since that is 10 times the population incidence. But the fact that the answer is not 100% also suggests that other factors besides DNA must be involved. That certainly doesn’t imply, however, that those other undefined factors are inherently alterable.
The "other factors" appear to be hormonal environment in the womb long before birth. There are a number of papers on this subject, e.g.
Sexual Hormones and the Brain: An Essential Alliance for Sexual Identity and Sexual Orientation Garcia-Falgueras A, Swaab DF Endocr Dev. 2010;17:22-35
And from a subsequent e-mail:
Thanks for the heads up. I am truly sorry to hear that there is a continuing effort by Mr. Quinlan and others to distort this information about genetic factors in homosexuality. The facts have not changed since the e-mail message I sent you on May 20, 2007.
Regards, Francis Collins
In short, they knowingly and maliciously lie, on the grounds that "All's fair in the Culture Wars".
It's this that puts conservative people like myself off.
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