The GOP Should Be Scared by Virginia

Why did the Republican Party lose so badly in Virginia yesterday?  That is a question that pundits will be bickering about for days and weeks.   But to me, the GOP loss comes down to several factors, not the least of which is the reality in the age of Der Trumpenführer is that it is becoming increasingly impossible for decent, moral people to remain Republicans.  Both in the Virginia campaign and nationally, all the Republican Party has to offer is increasingly overt racism/white nationalism, the coddling of Christian extremists, and taking from the poor and middle class to give to the wealthy.  The entire GOP platform has become the antithesis of the Gospel's social message and outside of rural and ostensibly more religious areas, people are finding the GOP's message repulsive.  Ed Gillespie tried the tax cut promise which would have bankrupted Virginia in the style of what Sam Brownback did in Kansas.  Urban Virginia voters - who shoulder the bulk of the tax burden and basically support rural areas - said "No" resoundingly.   With Danica Roem defeating Bob Marshall, the GOP's use of god, guns and gays to mobilize voters is in its death throes in Virginia.   The other notable thing about the election is the degree of dishonesty in the GOP candidates. Gillespie, John Adams, and Jill Vogel (and many of the GOP House of Delegates candidates as well) lied with abandon and at times shockingly so. Rather than garner them votes (outside of white supremacists and evangelical Christians) the open and blatant lies disgusted far larger numbers of voters.  A column in the New York Times picks up on some of this and lays out why the GOP should be very worried after their playbook went down in flames.  Here are excerpts:

Although at times over the last week it seemed that Democrats were doing their damnedest to lose the Virginia gubernatorial race, they failed miserably in that endeavor, which is to say that they succeeded emphatically at the polls. Ralph Northam will be the state’s next governor.

That’s a gigantic relief, because a Northam defeat would have prompted a Democratic meltdown — and rightly so. In statewide races, Virginia is increasingly blue: Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump there by five points a year ago. And Trump’s ceaseless assault on propriety, decency and ethical, responsible government is supposedly firing up liberals as never before. Virginia on Tuesday was the place to demonstrate that.

The demonstration was impressive. Not only did Northam beat his Republican opponent, Ed Gillespie, by about nine points . . . but Democrats also performed strongly in other Virginia races. So strongly, in fact, that one Democrat, Danica Roem, easily unseated a longtime Republican incumbent in the House of Delegates and will become the nation’s only openly transgender state representative. The history that she made flies squarely in the face of the bigotry and divisiveness that Trump sows.

Just when we needed a sign that his America is not all of America, Virginia came to the rescue and gave us a vivid one. And I guarantee you that the Republicans up for re-election in 2018 saw it, shuddered and will spend the next weeks and months trying to figure out just how much trouble their party is in and precisely how to repair it. . . . . the returns in Virginia suggested that Trump antipathy is indeed real and that it is definitely animating.

Does it mean that Democrats can wrest one chamber of Congress from Republican control in 2018? Impossible to say. . . . But there are reasons for Republicans to be very afraid.  One is that Northam outperformed Clinton without being a particularly energetic, forceful candidate. . . . . He prevailed, handily.

Republicans should also worry that they’ve oversold themselves on the moderate-progressive divide in the Democratic Party and how severely Democrats would be hobbled by it.

Late Tuesday night, as the final votes were still being counted, Democrats were poised to pick up at least 13 seats, and taking control of the House was not out of the question.

In rooting for a Gillespie victory, the G.O.P. was looking for something larger: an assurance that a Republican in a swing state or swing district could find the right recipe for energizing Trump supporters without alienating Trump skeptics.  Gillespie’s answer was . . . . he parroted the president’s tough talk about criminals and immigrants and denounced professional football players who didn’t stand for the national anthem.

Beyond the returns, this was a governor’s race that made the skin crawl, which is to say that it was a sufficiently accurate mirror and microcosm of American political culture in the Age of Trump. . . . . Northam didn’t sell out his principles nearly as thoroughly as Gillespie did, and Democrats didn’t sink to Republicans’ level. In fact one of the most audacious tricks that Republicans sought to pull off was ginning up as much outrage over a loathsome Latino Victory Fund ad that ran on television just a handful of times — it showed a truck with a Confederate flag hunting down children of color — as there was over viciously negative commercials of Gillespie’s that blanketed the airwaves. These attacks essentially branded Northam, a mild-mannered pediatrician who served in the Army, as some unhinged leftie eager to give guns to pedophiles.

Gillespie’s campaign “has not been just a dog whistle to the intolerant, racially resentful parts of the Republican base; it’s been a mating call,” wrote The Washington Post in a blistering — and wholly warranted — editorial . . . 

Before this race, Gillespie was as establishment as an establishment Republican could be . . . Until the last few months, when he utterly transformed. The impression he left on voters was an ugly one, and he and the G.O.P. have nothing to show for it. That should scare Republicans most of all.

It Is Time to Retire Del. Bob Marshall

Speaking of Republicans who are a scourge on decency, here in Virginia, no one is more anti-gay and opposed to modernity and equality for all citizens than Del. Bob Marshall.  Marshall has been a blight on Virginia's reputation for years and can be relied upon to back every racist and reactionary cause favored by the Virginia GOP.  Indeed, Marshall is usually leading the Virginia GOP effort to return to the 1950's.  Marshall - along with the rest of the House of Delegates - is up for re-election this year and his anti-gay batshitery and support for Indiana's license to discriminate law is rightly becoming an issue in his re-election campaign.  Marshall needs to be defeated and sent into permanent retirement.  The Washington Post looks at how events in Indiana are becoming an issue in Marshall's re-election effort (NOTE: like every good Christofascists, Marshall is lying when he says the Indiana statute is no different than Virginia's statute):

The national firestorm over an Indiana law that some say legalizes discrimination against gay and lesbian people has spilled over into a Virginia House of Delegates race.

Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William) is defending the Indiana law, to the chagrin of his Democratic challenger, Don Shaw, who called the effort “offensive.”

“Virginia has the same law. We passed it in 2007. The sky did not fall!” Marshall wrote in a letter to the Indianapolis Star.

Marshall wrote the letter in response to one that Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) wrote to the newspaper imploring Indiana businesses to consider relocating to Virginia for its “open, inclusive and thriving business environment.”

Shaw and the governor’s office said there are significant differences between Virginia’s law — and similar ones in other states — and the law under scrutiny in Indiana.

They say Indiana’s law was designed to give private companies legal cover for discrimination against gay and lesbian people, while Virginia’s law seeks to protect an individual’s freedom of religion from government intrusion.

Shaw said he is running in part to support laws protecting his 23-year-old son, who is openly gay.  “Bob Marshall wants to basically allow people to discriminate against my son and I don’t think that’s right,” he said. “I want to live in a robust and thriving Virginia economy and I believe Bob Marshall is doing everything he can do to prevent that.”

During the recent legislative session, Marshall introduced two bills that Shaw said mirror the Indiana law.  One would have blocked McAuliffe from making nondiscrimination against people because of their sexual orientation a condition of entering into a government contract. The other said anyone who gets a license or authority from the state would not have to serve or counsel same-sex couples if he or she has moral or religious objections.

Marshall, one of the most conservative members of the Virginia House, was the author of Virginia’s now defunct 2006 ban on same-sex marriage.

Businesses in Marshall's district need to make it clear that Marshall is a liability to economic growth and prosperity and that he must be defeated in November.

MAKE A DONATION TO SHAW'S CAMPAIGN HERE.

Virginia Senate Kills GOP Gay Marriage Defense Bill

Following Attorney General Mark Herrings decision to cease the state's defense of the unconstitutional Marshall-Newman Amendments, the usual Republican gay haters in the Virginia House of Delegates rushed to introduce a bill that would have allowed any member of the General Assembly to represent the state in defending a law or constitutional provision that the Office of the Attorney General failed to defend.  The measure, which sailed through the GOP controlled House of Delegates which always does the bidding of Virginia Christofascists, would have been a recipe for chaos and would have allowed crack pots like Del. Bob Marshall to engage in all kinds of lunacy.  Thankfully, the bill has been killed in the Virginia Senate.  Expect much spittle flecked convulsions from the gay haters.  Here are highlights from the Virginian Pilot:

The Democratic majority on a Virginia Senate committee this morning predictably quashed a bill from the Republican House of Delegates to let Virginia lawmakers defend state laws when a governor or attorney general declines to do so.

That measure, HB 706 from Shenandoah County Del. Todd Gilbert, was tabled in the Senate Rules Committee on a 12-4 party line vote, with the panel's GOP minority powerless to prevent that.

Gilbert's bill to empower the General Assembly or any individual member to intervene in protection of a state law not being defended by top executive branch officials doesn't mention any particular law.

But it comes against the backdrop of new Democratic Attorney General Mark Herring's decision to seek the overturn of a state ban on same-sex marriage, rather than preserve it.

The GOP-dominated House passed Gilbert's bill by a wide majority earlier this month, just ahead of a U.S. District Court hearing in Norfolk on a lawsuit by two gay couples challenging Virginia's marriage restrictions.

Last week, the judge who heard that case ruled the state's same-sex marriage laws unconstitutional.

Although Gilbert's bill failed Friday, the House is also attempting to rein in Herring with language in its budget directing the attorney general to abandon his legal assault on Virginia’s gay-marriage ban.

Until the power of the religious extremists at The Family Foundation over the Virginia GOP is broken, don't expect much sanity from the House of Delegates.

Gay Virginian Are Leaving Virginia

Not many years ago gay hater extraordinaire GOP Del. Bob Marshall admitted that his goal was to drive all gays from Virginia.  While things are changing for the better in Virginia, especially in terms of social acceptance - e.g., the boyfriend and I were at the yacht club tonight and the staff and  heterosexual friends were all happily listening as we described our wedding plans - the legal framework remains decidedly anti-gay.  As a result, Marshall is getting his wish as gays we know and others are moving to Washington, DC, and Maryland and taking their talents and assets with them.  The Commonwealth of Virginia ends up at a net loss.  All so bigots like Marshall and the Christofascist at The Family Foundation can smugly feel good about themselves.  Yes, it is sick, but such is the nature of fundamentalist Christianity in Virginia and elsewhere.  A piece in Slate looks at one Virginia gay couple that has decided to simply leave Virginia to escape the prevalent anti-gay legal reality.  But for family commitments and the boyfriend's salon, I'd leave Virginia without a moment's hesitation.  Here are highlights from the Slate piece:

In my heart, I’ll never be anything but a Virginian. I’ve spent my entire adult life here; I can recite arcane points of the state’s history; I once even helped draw the lines of our state senate districts. I’ve collected a ridiculous assortment of maps and cufflinks, rocks glasses and ties with our state seal emblazoned on them. I love this state so much that I even married a Virginia native.

But this month, I’ll be moving across the river to Washington, D.C., walking away from the state I grew up in. It’s not that I don’t still love the commonwealth. It’s that I finally realized that the commonwealth isn’t a whole lot in love with me.

I’ve lived through the banning of same-sex marriage in Virginia. I was in the fight against the marriage amendment that was added to our state’s constitution in 2006. I’ve heard delegates and state senators say that discrimination in hiring doesn’t exist and then watched them vote against a judge solely because he or she is gay. But these things didn’t really hit home until last year, when my husband and I decided to get married—and had to cross state lines just to get a valid marriage license.

The Virginia House of Delegates, meanwhile, just voted down a bill that would have allowed second-parent adoptions, because they don’t want gay couples to be able to legally adopt children. Gay couples like us. This isn’t to say that we haven’t seen steps toward progress. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine both support gay marriage and anti-discrimination laws, as do our newly elected governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. One of Attorney General Mark Herring’s first acts in his new office was to decline to defend the marriage amendment in court . . .

After the Supreme Court struck down DOMA, we changed our minds about where we wanted the marriage to be held. If we couldn’t get married in Hampton, where my husband was born and raised, or Richmond, where he went to college and I worked for years in the General Assembly, or Alexandria, the little city we decided was going to be our home, did it really matter where we had our ceremony?

If Virginia didn’t want anything to do with us, while D.C. could give us a federally recognized marriage certificate, why wouldn’t we cross the Potomac to get married there? For that matter, why couldn’t we live there?

I’d invested too much of my life to walk away. Yet walk away is exactly what I’m doing now. Virginia will inevitably join other states in allowing same sex marriages some day—but I’m no longer willing to wait for that day to come. I love my husband too much to let my state tell me he’s nothing more than a legal stranger.

I can’t, of course, completely abandon my home. I’ll continue to help out groups whose mission is to advance equality in Virginia, and I’ll support candidates who fight to pass LGBTQ-friendly legislation. We’ll keep visiting our families down in Southeastern Virginia.

I love my commonwealth, and I always will. I just don’t have to live there anymore.

I will admit that I identify with the author's feelings.  I have lived in Virginia longer than anywhere else in my lifetime.  But sooner or later being a third class citizen devoid of non-discrimination protections becomes burdensome.  Why live this way when there are viable alternatives?   And what makes it worse is knowing that this negative atmosphere exists solely so that nasty, horrible people like Bob Marshall, Victoria Cobb and others of that ilk can feel superior and justify their claimed piety by looking down on others.  I truly hope that history looks upon them with horror and that they join the ranks of those deemed to reprehensible like those who  supported the Jim Crow laws and massive resistance.  May their descendants be embarrassed to have them as ancestors.

 

Del. Bob Marshall - The Face of Anti-Gay Animus in Virginia

Some politicians focus their legislative efforts on improving public education, improving infrastructure, attracting new job creating businesses, and so forth.  Not Del. Bob Marshall.  His reason for being is to persecute LGBT Virginians and put his personal religious based animus towards gays in action.  Other than Victoria Cobb of the Family Foundation, Matt Staver at Liberty University and the increasingly insane Pat Robertson, there is no one more viciously anti-gay than Bob Marshall.  Yet, ironically, it may be statements made by Marshall and former attorney general Ken Cuccinelli who help make the case that anti-gay animus was the main motivation behind Virginia's same sex marriage ban.  In the plaintiff's pleadings in Bostic v. Rainey examples of their anti-gay animus are laid out (Marshall was a backer of House Bill No. 751).  Here's a sampling:

11. House Bill Number 751 included in its “legislative findings” the fact that “in 1996, the United States Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (Pub. L. No. 104-199, 110 Stat. 2419 (1996)), which recognized the traditional definition of marriage as between one man and one woman for all aspects of federal law.” Id.

12. House Bill Number 751 also included in its “legislative findings” that there are “life shortening and health compromising consequences of homosexual behavior” that inure “to the detriment of all citizens regardless of their sexual orientation or inclination.” Id.

14. In 2004, Robert Marshall, one of the co-sponsors of House Bill Number 751, authored an article in The Washington Post in which he referred to marriage between gay and lesbian individuals as “counterfeit marriage” and stated that the Affirmation of Marriage Act was “needed to resist the agenda of activist homosexuals” because the “danger” they posed was “real.” Lustig Decl. Ex. B (The Washington Post, No “New Jim Crow” in Virginia, July 3, 2004).

21. Then-Virginia Senator (now-Attorney General) Kenneth Cuccinelli urged his colleagues to adopt the Marshall/Newman Amendment by claiming “[t]he homosexual left has been on the attack against marriage and family for 40 years,” and that the amendment was necessary for “regaining lost ground.” Lustig Decl. Ex. E (The Washington Post, Va. Senate Backs Ban on Gay Marriage, Feb. 8, 2005).

22. More recently, Attorney General Cuccinelli publicly stated that homosexuality “brings nothing but self-destruction, not only physically but of their soul.” Lustig Decl. Ex. F (The Washington Post, Cuccinelli Basks in Richmond’s Warmer Climate, Feb. 5, 2008).

23. Similarly, Attorney General Cuccinelli has stated that homosexual acts are “intrinsically wrong” and “don’t comport with natural law”; and that homosexual behavior “is not healthy to an individual and in aggregate is not healthy to society.” Lustig Decl. Ex. G (The Virginia Pilot, Steve Shannon for Attorney General, Oct. 26, 2009); Ex. H (Huffington Post, Ken Cuccinelli Loses Petition to Uphold Anti-Sodomy Law, Apr. 10, 2013).

Remember, the supposed purpose of the Marshall-Newman Amended as represented in pleadings in Bostic was to protect traditional marriage and two parent parenting.  Yet we see statements that gays are unhealthy, a danger, that being gay is  life shortening, and other batshitery.  But Marshall's anti-gay animus extends far beyond alleged desires to protect "traditional marriage."  Joe Jervis has a partial list of Marshall's always sething animus towards gays:

Last week Marshall filed an amendment that would grant Virginia state legislators the right to claiming standing in marriage lawsuits. In September 2013, Marshall petitioned the US Supreme Court to overturn Virginia's legalization of sodomy. In May 2012, Marshall attempted to block the appointment of an openly gay state judge because the nominee has "an illegal husband." In 2011 Del. Bob Marshall claimed it is a felony for a state office to fly the rainbow flag. Marshall has also called on Virginia to issue its own currency, and has claimed that God punishes women who have abortions by giving them deformed children. After the DADT repeal bill passed, Marshall tried to have gays banned from the Virginia National Guard.

Equality Loudoun has a further compilation of Marshall's anti-gay animus here.  If a court wants evidence that anti-gay animus prompted the passage of the Marshall-Newman Amendment, it need look no further than Bob Marshall.

P.S. I hope Judge Wright Allen is familiar with Marshall's support for disenfranchising black voters. 

The Delusional Virginia GOP Blame "Poor Communicating" For Party's Reactionary Image

The GOP across the country continues to live in a bubble that separates the party's elected politicians from objective reality.  Nowhere it seems is the bubble stronger than here in Virginia where the state GOP leadership thinks the problem with the party's image as something to the right of Attila the Hun where women are to subjugated to men, blacks are to be disenfranchised, and gays driven back into the closet is all due to poor communications.  Never mind that the Virginia GOP is controlled by wild eyed religious extremists orchestrated by The Family Foundation, Tea Party lunatics and gun loving white supremacists that have all too clearly communicated the GOP's agenda to anyone who doesn't live under a rock.  Indeed, the extremism of the Virginia GOP's efforts during last year's General Assembly session likely did wonders to help Barack Obama carry Virginia again in 2012.  No doubt Democrats are hoping that the Virginia GOP is insane enough to cling to poor communications as the source of the party's problems rather than realize that it is the party's policies and social agenda that is alienating voters - especially in the states burgeoning urban areas.  Here are excerpts from the Washington Post:

As Republicans prepare to return to Richmond on Jan. 9, some are eager to avoid a repeat of the last General Assembly session, when they found themselves in a swirl of national media attention and even a “Saturday Night Live” parody over a bill that would have required women to get vaginal ultrasounds before abortions.

Some moderate Republicans are privately rooting for hot-button social legislation to die quietly in committee. But killing off those bills is not their entire strategy — and not one that conservative Republicans are on board with in any case.

More broadly accepted — among tea party favorites and establishment types — is the idea that Virginia Republicans have to get a better grip on how their work in Richmond gets conveyed to voters.

That means not only taking to social media but also pushing new issues — like a pair of proposed constitutional amendments to curb union power — that are likely to grab headlines and fire up the party base without igniting another reproductive-rights war.

“We recognize we must do a good job of messaging our entire agenda and making sure we cut through all the fervor and focus on social issues,” said Del. Ben L. Cline (R-Rockbridge), co-chairman of the conservative caucus. “We have to do a better job of communicating to the public the work that we do on fiscal issues, on pocketbook issues and on education.”

“Our problem is not being too conservative and our solution is certainly not wishy- washing the party down so we stand for nothing,” said Del. David B. Albo (R-Fairfax). “The problem is that we are not communicating.”

“What I’ve got to do is show my constituents that Dave Albo and the majority of Republicans are totally normal,” Albo said.

Albo lamented that in the midst of last session’s pitched social battles — in addition to the ultrasound issue, there was a failed “personhood” bill that would have bestowed legal rights on fertilized eggs, the rejection of a gay judicial nominee and a bill allowing state-funded adoption agencies to turn away prospective parents if they are gay — hardly anyone noticed that the state created 1,500 public university slots for in-state students.

Whether that happens could well depend on the fate of a single delegate’s bills, said Bob Holsworth, a longtime Richmond political observer and former Virginia Commonwealth University professor.  .   .   .  . “I think in this instance, a lot depends on what happens with Bob Marshall’s bills.”

Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William) is one of the House’s most prolific bill sponsors. Among his proposals last year was the personhood bill, which critics said could outlaw not only abortion, but IUDs and certain birth-control pills that can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg. The bill had cleared the House and was on its way to a Senate vote when it was scuttled amid the ultrasound uproar.  .  .  .  .   “If [Marshall’s] bills get bottled up and don’t succeed in the House, I think at the end of the day, you’ll find people talking about how the party leadership exercised message discipline.”

Marshall is not particularly interested in being reined in. If Republicans don’t take bold stands on issues like abortion and gun rights, he said, “what brand do the Republicans have?”   For this session, in response to the Connecticut elementary school massacre, Marshall is working on legislation requiring schools to arm some teachers, principals or other staff. Marshall is also considering resubmitting his personhood bill.

And then there are the Democrats, who played up the General Assembly’s antiabortion bills in the presidential and Senate races last fall and seem eager to keep the issue alive for the 2013 contests.  Barbara A. Favola (D-Arlington) said there are bills in the works that would amend or repeal the ultrasound law, and lift new building codes for abortion clinics.  “Just because they’re not going to bring it up again, I don think the issue’s dead,” she said.

Dave Albo's comment that Republicans are "totally normal" is laughable.  They are totally normal for someone out of the Spanish Inquisition but not compared to normal, rational, non-racist, non-religious extremist Virginians.  

Roanoke Times Column Slams Anti-Gay Bigotry

After reaping horrific negative news coverage literally worldwide, as noted on this blog previously the Roanoke Athletic Club and Botetourt Athletic Club (in the Roanoke, Virginia area) changed their membership policies to allow same sex couples to join under a new "household" membership.  Making matters worse, the clubs are affiliated with Carilion Clinic, the major hospital/heath care provider in the Roanoke area (it describes itself as "a not-for-profit health care organization serving nearly one million people in Virginia through hospitals, outpatient specialty centers and advanced primary care practices").  That such an entity would have anti-gay policies speaks volumes about the backwardness and bigotry that continue to permeate much of Virginia.  And what's really frightening is that Roanoke is liberal and enlightened compared to the rest of southwest Virginia.  A column in the Roanoke Times takes Carilion and its affiliates to task and notes the disservice anti-gay bigotry to the entire region and state.  Here are highlights:

Carilion did the right thing last week by changing its ill-advised policy barring same-sex couples from joining the Roanoke Athletic Club and Botetourt Athletic Club as families.  The pity is, it took 40 days, a lawsuit and a torrent of criticism to accomplish that.

By now the facts are well known. Will Trinkle, a real estate agent who's gay and is raising a child with a male partner, signed up for a family membership at the RAC on May 15.  Nine days later in a telephone call, the RAC revoked it, under the reasoning that Trinkle and his partner didn't qualify as "a family." Carilion had claimed it was following Virginia law.

That was a crock, because Virginia law doesn't define the term "family," at least not yet. Nor has the General Assembly gotten around to prohibiting private businesses from granting such memberships to families headed by same-sex parents. (But give them some time. Del. Bob Marshall may be working on the bill as you read this.)

This brought the RAC more publicity than anything else in its history. And all of it was negative, aimed at a company that is by far the Roanoke Valley's largest employer.  By extension, it made this region look like the kind of atavistic backwater that only the Rev. Fred "God Hates Fags" Phelps could be proud of.

Southwest Virginia desperately needs new businesses and industries.  The type of media attention that the RAC debacle brought to the Roanoke area certainly did nothing to help the region's image or to attract progressive forward thinking businesses and the jobs they would create.   Del. Bob Marshall and his fellow knuckle dragging Neanderthals in the Republican Party of Virginia may want to drag Virginia back into the 18th century, but that endeavor will not help most Virginians or attract the jobs areas like southwest Virginian need so badly.  Once again Virginia has received a black eye in the world of national news coverage.

Washington Post Slams Del. Bob Marshall

Few individuals in Virginia bear as much hatred and animus towards LGBT individuals that Del. Bob Marshall who is increasingly a huge embarrassment to not only his apparently delusional district that keeps reelecting him but to the entire Commonwealth of Virginia.  Marshall is increasingly akin to George Wallace in the 1960's on desegregation when it comes to not only to gay rights but to treating LGBT Virginians as fully human.  The man wraps himself in religious piety yet represents a one man advertisement for why would would not want to be known as a Christian.  Indeed, Marshall is an affront to common decency not to mention even a semblance of respect for the U.S. Constitution's promise of religious freedom for all citizens, not just flaming bigots and hate merchants such as Marshall.  In an editorial, the Washington Post rightly rips Marshall a new one.  Here are highlights:

WHATEVER FIG leaves Virginia Republican lawmakers grasped for, it was old-fashioned bigotry that led them to block the nomination last month of Tracy Thorne-Begland to a judgeship on Richmond General District Court. Mr. Thorne-Begland, a highly regarded prosecutor and a former fighter pilot, is also gay, and that last fact was enough for all but a handful of the 67 GOP members in the House of Delegates to oppose his nomination or to sit on their hands. 

 The outcome was a disgrace for Virginia, which has no openly gay judges. But to the state’s credit, its judicial, legal and political establishments aren’t solely in the hands of homophobic legislators. .  .  .  .  the Richmond Circuit Court stepped in last week and appointed him to fill a vacancy on the district court on an interim basis.   Bravo for the higher court. And hurrah for the leaders of Richmond’s five biggest law firms, who publicly endorsed Mr. Thorne-Begland’s candidacy, saying “he would be an outstanding jurist.” 

Unfortunately, that’s not the end of it. The appointment ends in February, when the General Assembly will be in session. And Mr. Thorne-Begland’s opponents have already sworn to deep-six his nomination if it comes before them again. Among the most vocal is Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William), who branded Mr. Thorne-Begland “an aggressive activist” for the “pro-homosexual agenda” and said last year that gay men and lesbians are “intrinsically disordered.”

What was truly disordered was Mr. Marshall’s remark last month that Mr. Thorne-Begland would be biased if he were to preside from the bench over a case involving “a barroom fight between a homosexual and a heterosexual.” He expressed no similar concern about the possibility of bias by heterosexual judges in such cases.

The outcome of the debate over Mr. Thorne-Begland will say a lot about the commonwealth — whether it remains in thrall to bigots or is ready to face a future in which there is no place for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Gay Hating Bob Marshall is Throwing a Fit Over Thorne-Begland Appointment

One thing that can always be depended upon with House of Delegates member Bob Marshall is that he will repeatedly reveal what a truly foul and hate filled man is is in fact.  And his hatred for LGBT Virginians is near pathological.  The man has openly said that he'd be happy to drive all gays from Virginia.  And now that the Richmond Circuit Court judges have played an end run around Marshall's and heinous bigots at The Family Foundation, the spittle is flying fast and furiously from Marshall's lips.  The reality is that Marshall is quickly becoming utterly outside the main stream even in the delusional Republican Party of Virginia - his 5% showing in this past week's GOP primary is telling.  Now he's lashing out at Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell for his approval of the Circuit Court end run - which I believe is part of McDonnell's desperate attempt to appear to be less extreme - and the few fellow members of the GOP who aren't knuckle dragging Neanderthals.  WTVR-TV looks at Marshall's conniption fit and thinly veiled threats aimed at the judges who placed qualifications over religious based hatred.  Here are highlights:

RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR) – One day after Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall questioned whether fellow Republican delegate Manoli Loupassi backed openly-gay Richmond prosecutor Tracy Thorne-Begland for a judgeship because Thorne-Begland donated to Loupassi’s campaign, the Richmond lawmaker dismissed Del. Marshall’s accusation.

“Bob got five percent this week,” Del. Loupassi (R – Richmond) said in reference to Del. Marshall’s showing during the Virginia primary in which Del. Marshall (R – Prince William) lost his bid to be the Republican candidate for Virginia’s U.S. Senate seat. “He’s had a bad week. I forgive him.”

During a phone interview with CBS 6 Thursday, Del. Marshall said he planned to sponsor a bill forbidding lawmakers from sponsoring or voting for a judicial candidates if that candidate had given money to the lawmaker in the previous five years.

Last month Del. Marshall organized state lawmakers to reject Thorne-Begland’s judicial nomination. Del. Marshall argued Thorne-Begland’s history as a gay rights activist made him unfit to be a judge. Thursday, the Richmond Circuit Court circumvented lawmakers and appointed Thorne-Begland to an interim seat on the bench. 

“We appointed the judges who appointed him. So they are calling into question our own judgment. That is not smart, on the part of these circuit court judges,” said Del. Marshall in a phone interview with CBS 6. “To place someone on the board like that who, when he was offered an opportunity to rebut a presumption that he wasn’t committing a felony, under the uniform code of military justice, declined to do so, is a disgrace.”

During the phone interview, Del. Marshall also questioned whether it was proper for Del. Loupassi, who practices law in Richmond, to potentially argue a case before Thorne-Begland given the pair’s financial and political relationship.

“I am a practicing attorney. I win some and I lose some,” Del. Loupassi said. “The reason why you’re losing and the reason why you’re winning is because the judges are making determinations not based upon the lawyer whose in front of them, but based upon the facts that they hear.”  Del. Loupassi said Thorne-Begland would have an opportunity to remove himself from a case should be feel uncomfortable.

And as noted, Marshall is really peeved with Bob McDonnell.  Here are highlights from the Richmond-Times Dispatch on Marshall's spittle flecked comments about McDonnell:

Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William said Friday that Gov. Bob McDonnell's support for what Marshall called the "end run" appointment of Tracy Thorne-Begland to a Richmond judgeship "encourages judicial usurpation" of a power that the state constitution gives to legislators.

Tucker Martin, a spokesman for McDonnell, said Thursday: "The governor believes Mr. Thorne-Begland is well-qualified to serve on the bench. He congratulates him on the appointment."

On Friday, Marshall released to the media an email he had sent the governor.  "Your support of this judicial appointment by circuit judges means you hold the appointed judiciary to be a branch of Virginia's government superior to the branch elected by the people, the General Assembly," Marshall wrote.

"We can and do differ over the alleged qualifications of this nominee. And I note that your endorsement of the nominee considerably relaxes the standards as to what constitutes disqualifying factors for judicial appointments. I and others are stunned by your open embrace of the judicial activists on the Richmond Circuit Court who have effectively usurped a constitutional power belonging to the General Assembly by selecting a nominee after he was rejected by the assembly."

Marshall is a mean and vicious man.  To those who have met him in person and say he can be charming, my response is this:  So could Adolph Hitler when he wanted to be.  Marshall's hatred towards gays is nearly as pathological as Hitler's hatred towards Jews.  He's dangerous and needs to be voted out of office.  Likewise the The Family Foundation's campaign to threaten and intimidate legislators needs to be ended. 

Richmond Circuit Court Judges Defy Bob Marshall and The Family Foundation

In an amazing turn of events after the Christofascists at The Family Foundation and the mentally deranged and homophobic Del. Bob Marshall torpedoed his appointment to the Richmond District Court Bench, Tracy Thorne-Begland (pictured at left) has been appointed by the Richmond Circuit Court judges to fill a District Court vacancy.  The Circuit Court judges move follows an unusual move by five Richmond based mega law firms - a veritable who's who in the Virginia legal world - that jointly signed a letter addressed to the Circuit Court judges urging them to appoint Thorne-Begland and decrying the bigotry that was evidenced by his treatment by the Virginia House of Delegates.  Hopefully this turn of events will embolden other businesses and corporations to send a strong message that they - and many of us regular citizens - are over the Family Foundation dictating state laws and policy.  Victoria Cobb and her coven of haters at The Family Foundation need to be sent slinking back into the political wilderness or whatever dark swamps or nether regions that they crawled out from.  They are an embarrassment to Virginia and they need to step into the 21st century.  Here are highlights from the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

The Richmond Circuit Court has appointed Richmond prosecutor Tracy Thorne-Begland to fill the judicial vacancy created when the House of Delegates rejected his nomination to the Richmond General District Court bench last month.  He is the first openly gay judge in Virginia.

The appointment is a vindication of sorts for Thorne-Begland and his supporters, who felt his rejection by the GOP-controlled House of Delegates last month was primarily motivated by the fact that he is openly gay.

It is also a bold move for the judges of the Richmond Circuit Court, who know his interim appointment to the bench could face political opposition when it comes up for review next year in the legislature.  The judges did not act in a vaccuum, however.

The May 15 vote in the House sparked a measure of outrage in the legal community, as well as among local elected officials, Democrats, moderate Republicans and a number of organizations representing civil liberties and gay rights.

Earlier this week, five of Richmond's most prominent private attorneys, representing politically influential law firms, sent a letter to the Richmond Circuit Court expressing support for Thorne-Begland. And on Wednesday, an internal Republican memo surfaced that rebutted opposition leveled by several Republicans with military backgrounds over Thorne-Begland's military record as a Naval flight offcer.

The memo, written by Del. Richard L. Morris, R-Isle of Wight -- a 22-year Navy veteran and military law attorney -- argued that Thorne-Begland had not violated military law or his oath in publicly stating his opposition to the military's policy against gays in the armed forces.

Tracy Thorne-Begland has released a statement about his appointment as a general district court judge.

"I am humbled by the Circuit Court's decision," said Thorne-Begland, who serves as Richmond's chief deputy commonwealth's attorney under Commonwealth's Attorney Michael N. Herring.

Thorne-Begland's appointment to the 13th Judicial District in the Manchester Courthouse takes effect July 1.

"I look forward to serving the citizens of the city of Richmond as a jurist, and over the coming months, I hope that my service provides comfort to all Virginians that I remain committed to the faithful application of the laws and Constitutions of Virginia and the United States of America."

 

Tucker Martin, a spokesman for Gov. Bob McDonnell, said:  "The governor believes Mr. Thorne-Begland is well-qualified to serve on the bench. He congratulates him on the appointment."

It is ironic that Victoria Cobb - head Christofascist at The Family Foundation made this remark about the Circuit Court judges' rebuke of her organization's rank bigotry:

"As a member of the court, he now has the responsibility to uphold the Constitution, not apply his own personal, political agenda or viewpoint," said Victoria Cobb, president of the Christian conservative group, The Family Foundation.  "Because of our efforts, he will be watched very closely in the coming years, particularly if he is elevated to any higher court in the future." Cobb said she hoped the "incident" would prompt deeper scrutiny of future judicial candidates.

The Family Foundation and Ms. Cobb do not give a rat's ass for the Constitution and the law.  It is ALL about their personal agenda of turning Virginia into a theocracy governed by the Christianist equivalent of Sharia law.  Ms. Cobb and The Family Foundation represent one of the most insidious forces of evil and threats to constitutional government in the Commonwealth.  It's safe to assume that if her lips are moving, she's lying.

Leaders of Richmond's Largest Law Firms Back Thorne-Begland Judgeship

Having just received a humiliating rebuke - or that's how anyone rational would see it - in his lunatic U.S. Senate nomination bid, Bob Marshall now has the power players in the Richmond legal community pushing the City's Circuit Court judges to do what the General Assembly would not: appoint an openly gay man to the bench.   In the legal world, these are not just local league firms.  No, they are large international law firms with hundreds of attorneys with credentials of the type Marshall could only dream about.  One can only hope that this may be the beginning of large powerful Virginia based law firms and corporations sending a message to the Virginia General Assembly - and the Virginia GOP in particular - that the crazy religious based extremism needs to cease.  It's bad for business and is making Virginia less competitive in the world economy.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post: 

Leaders of Richmond’s five largest law firms are urging the city’s Circuit Court judges to do what the General Assembly would not: appoint an openly gay man to the bench.  The General Assembly in May blocked the appointment of Tracy Thorne-Begland, a veteran Richmond prosecutor, to a relatively low-level District Court judgeship. 

“He’s a bright guy, he’s fair-minded; people that deal with the commonwealth’s attorney’s office think he’s a real leader there,” said former Virginia attorney general Richard Cullen, one of five lawyers who sent a letter to circuit judges Tuesday on Thorne-Begland’s behalf. “I think it’s fair to say we want this to be based on the merits. And based on the merits, Tracy will be an outstanding judge. Nobody disagrees with that.”

The letter was very brief: “We understand that the Court is considering appointing Tracy Thorne-Begland to the District Court for the City of Richmond. We believe he would be an outstanding jurist and support his appointment.”

Along with Cullen, who is chairman of McGuireWoods, it was signed by James V. Meath, chairman of Williams Mullen and a former president of the Virginia Bar Association; Thurston R. Moore, chairman emeritus of Hunton & Williams; John S. West, managing partner of Troutman Sanders’s Richmond office; and Thomas M. Wolf of LeClairRyan, former governor Timothy M. Kaine’s onetime law partner.

Opposition to Thorne-Begland’s appointment was led by the Family Foundation of Virginia and Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William). 

University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias said the letter could help. “Having the pillars of the legal establishment strongly urge the Richmond circuit judges to appoint [Thorne-Begland] because he is highly qualified is valuable,” he said via e-mail. Tobias added that what’s up in the air is whether the General Assembly would appoint Thorne-Begland permanently after having an opportunity to assess him during an interim term.

But Marshall, who ran in Tuesday’s primary for U.S. Senate but was defeated by George Allen, was not swayed.  “This is the Republican establishment that can’t take a message,” he said. “This is unbelievable arrogance. We went through this process, the House of Delegates said ‘no,’ we have the authority to do that. We found him wanting in judicial temperament. If they don’t like the outcome, they should run for delegate.”

Perhaps what these firms need to do is find a good candidate to challenge Marshall in 2013 and bankroll Marshall's opponent and get Marshall out of the General Assembly.  He's an embarrassment to Virginia not to mention common decency.   These forms also need to be more aggressive in sending a message to the larger Virginia GOP that religious extremism needs to end.

George "Macaca" Allen Trounces Kool-Aid Drinking Challengers in GOP Primary

I was pleased with the results of today's GOP primary for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Jim Webb.  And it's not because I'm a fan of my former law school classmate George Felix Allen - although believe it or not he was actually sort of cute many years ago in a bubba kind of way.  And it's not because I haven't known George for a long time - in fact, I met my former wife while in law school at a party co-hosted by Allen who was certainly living up to his party boy image (I'm sure the Christoifascists at The Family Foundation would have been shocked).   No, I'll be supporting his Democrat opponent Tim Kaine in the run up to the November election.

No, I'm please with the results because they are a powerful rebuke to the Kool-Aid drinking crazies who were his opponents: Tea Party nut job, Jamie Radtke, Slideshow "Sodomy is Not A Right" Del. Bob Marshall, and professional Christian and gay-hater E. J. Jackson.  That Bob Marshall couldn't even break the 10% mark demonstrates that outside of Marshall's home district (where his constituents must be drinking severely tainted water), he's too crazy even for today's theocratic and insane Virginia GOP.  As for Jackson, his candidacy was always a joke - apparently he still hasn't figured out that he's merely used as a prop to make the Virginia GOP and The Family Foundation look less white supremacist leaning than they are in fact.   Here's a vote tally with 88% of precincts reporting:

 Candidate                     Vote %

Allen  . . . . . . . . . . . 146,015   65%

Radtke . . . . . . . .. .   52,340    23%

Marshall . . . . . . . . . .15,115     7%

Jackson . . . . . . . . . . .10,783   5%

And Tim Kaine wasted no time in going on the offensive against Allen who rubber stamped every spending bill laid before him by Chimperator Bush and Emperor Palpatine Cheney and who voted for the Iraq War debacle.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post:

Kaine quickly made clear how he would attack Allen in their head-to-head matchup.  “Voters already had the chance to experience George Allen’s vision during his last term in the Senate, which turned record surpluses into massive deficits, added trillions to our debt, and put opportunity for a select few ahead of opportunity for all our businesses and families,” Kaine said in a statement Tuesday night. “George Allen’s approach helped create our economic mess; Virginians can’t afford six more years.”

For Allen, the race represents a chance at redemption after his dramatic reelection loss to Webb in 2006. Allen appeared to have that contest well in hand — and was already mulling a run for president in 2008 — when he referred to an Indian-American volunteer for the Webb campaign as “macaca,” an ethnic slur in some cultures.

For Kaine, the contest marks a return to state politics following a detour to serve as President Obama’s Democratic National Committee chairman. Rising from the Richmond City Council to become the city’s mayor, then lieutenant governor and governor, Kaine sought to craft a reputation as a moderate willing to work with both sides of the aisle, in the mold of his longtime friend, Sen. Mark Warner (D).

Neither Virginia nor America needs George Allen back in the U.S. Senate.  Hopefully a majority of Virginians will recognize this fact and keep Allen in retirement.

Virginian Pilot: Make Gay Marriage Legal

I nearly fainted when I saw the lead editorial in today's Virginian Pilot which called for Virginia and the federal government to make same sex marriage legal.  Moreover, the column takes both Republicans and Democrats - but more so Republicans - in Virginia for the anti-gay discrimination that is the hallmark of this state.  And yes, "Slideshow" Bob Marshall gets slammed by name.  As do "Christians" who for centuries used the Bible as justification for slavery and later segregation.  Not surprisingly, in the comments left on the editorial some of the local Christofascsists and Kool-Aid drinkers are shrieking and claiming that they, not gays, are the ones being persecuted.  Obviously, these folks are not only liars and hypocrites but they also need to extricate their heads out of their asses.  Here are excerpts from the column:

Democrats and Republicans joined in Virginia to pass a law defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Democrats and Republicans together decided to put the civil rights of homosexuals to a popular vote. And Virginians - Democrats and Republicans - voted to marginalize their gay neighbors in 2006.  It was clear, even then, that history would judge such "defense of marriage" measures harshly - and not only because they do nothing to defend marriage. Popular opinion has been moving inexorably toward tolerance for gay unions.

Still, state lawmakers this month rejected a judicial candidate because of his sexual orientation. That gave his chief detractor, the author of Virginia's constitutional amendment on marriage, the opportunity to explain.  Del. Bob Marshall denounced the notion that gay people struggling for marriage rights have any parallel in history: "Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks never took an oath of office that they broke," he said on CNN. "Sodomy is not a civil right. It's not the same as the civil rights movement."

One of the nation's most forceful civil rights organizations pointedly repudiated thinking like Marshall's: "(T)he NAACP has opposed and will continue to oppose any national, state, local policy or legislative initiative that seeks to codify discrimination or hatred into the law or to remove the Constitutional rights of LGBT citizens," read the organization's statement. "We support marriage equality consistent with equal protection under the law provided under the 14th Amendment. ..."

Virginians seemed to recoil immediately at the legislature's vote on the judicial candidate and at Marshall's explanation, seeing both for what they are: embarrassments.  The vote and explanation also represent compelling arguments for why anything short of marriage equality will continue to provide cover for such bigotry and argument.

The federal government once deferred to states on mixed-race marriages, for example, and most passed laws barring it. The avowed purpose, to quote the U.S. Supreme Court, was "an endorsement of the doctrine of white supremacy."  The high court cited 14th Amendment freedoms when it settled the issue for the nation in the 1967 case that pitted Mildred and Richard Loving against Virginia: "To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law."

Civil life and laws aren't fixed to religious doctrine, nor should they be in a secular society.  Churches supported and resisted the civil rights movement of the mid-20th century. But the legislation that ended institutional bigotry arose from America's foundation in equality, belated though its application might have been.

To deny marriage to any couple solely on the basis of the way they are born makes a mockery of America's bedrock principles. To refuse marriage to gay people based on tradition or cultural norms elevates both above human rights.  It gives government too much authority over the most intimate relationship in an adult's life without sufficient civil justification. If the NAACP and Obama's endorsements were overdue, so is this one: Gay marriage should be legal across America, and it should be legal now.

"Slideshow" Bob Marshall Continues His Anti-Gay Diatribe

There are few individuals outside of the leadership at the FRC hate group affiliate, The Family Foundation, in Virginia who hole more hate and animus towards LGBT individuals that Del. Bob Marshall who has in some ways become the face of the Republican Party of Virginia after co-authoring the foul Marshall Newman Amendment to the Virginia Constitution and leading the charge to "lynch" Tracy Thorne-Brgland in the House of Delegates.  Moreover, by his statements about sexual orientation being a "behavior" he demonstrates his utter ignorance of modern medical and mental health knowledge.  Indeed, to say that Marshall is a bigot and total asshole is being far too kind.  Campaigning for the GOP Senate nomination in Charlottesville this week, Marshall continued to denigrate LGBT Virginians and spout long repudiated faux research as he pandered to members of the Virginia Tea Party.  Marshall gives new meaning to the phrase "ignorant by choice." Here are highlights from the Daily Progress:

A week after making the assertion that “sodomy is not a civil right,” Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, stood by his remarks during a campaign visit to a Central Virginia tea party meeting.

“If sodomy is a civil right, do we have to protect it? Do we have to fund it? Do we have to teach it? Do we have to encourage it? Do we have to facilitate it?,” Marshall said in an interview Thursday after an appearance at a meeting of the Jefferson Area Tea Party. “… It is not a civil right.”

Marshall touted his efforts to prevent Thorne-Begland from becoming a judge, which he has said were a response to Thorne-Begland’s activism, not his sexual orientation.

“I led the charge. The assembly said no. That’s what I would do in Washington,” Marshall said. “I wouldn’t let a federal judge be an activist there … You saw me. I didn’t let a state judge do it here.”

“It is an insult to suggest that the efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks are in any way parallel to the efforts to do things that have been criminal for most of this nation’s history.”

Marshall also was asked whether he believes consensual gay sex is protected by the U.S. Constitution.  “The court says it is in certain limited circumstances. But you know what that behavior does? It cuts your life by about 20 years,” Marshall answered. “It causes increased health problems. It doesn’t serve the common good to promote this.”

If we are worried about the common good, then the first thing that needs to be done is to see Marshall removed from office once and for all so he can spend all his time with his nose up the ass of the folks at The Family Foundation and  the asses of the child rapist protecting Catholic bishops.

Bob Marshall - The Foul Stench of a Bigot

The in my view mentally disturbed Del. Bob Marshall seems Hell bent to continue to destroy Virginia's image on a world wide basis through his raging homophobia and evident belief that his beliefs trump the United States Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court decisions.  The man is in my opinion a psychopath when it comes to his never ending hatred towards gay Virginians.  As if Virginia hasn't received enough negative coverage on virtually a worldwide basis, "Slide show Bob" as he's known in Richmond went on CNN and blathered about "sodomy" not being a civil right.  In Marshall's disturbed mind, the ruling in Lawrence v. Texas never happened and the Constitution's guaranty of freedom of religion - including freedom from having to subscribed to Marshall's warped religious fantasy land - doesn't exist.  One has to wonder when his district is going to wake up and vote his nasty ass out of office.  As for those who say "he's charming in person," my response is that Hitler could be charming when he want to be.  So what's your point?  First, here are excerpts from an MSNBC story where legal experts rip Marshall apart:

Law experts are taking issue with a Virginia legislator’s comment that “sodomy is not a civil right” in explaining why he opposed a gay prosecutor’s bid to become a judge.

Speaking Thursday on CNN’s “Starting Point,” Marshall expounded on his reasoning.

“Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks never took an oath of office that they broke. Sodomy is not a civil right,” he said.

Marshall argued that Thorne-Begland’s past advocacy of gay rights would interfere with his neutrality on the bench, particularly in cases involving homosexuals. “He can be a prosecutor if he wants to, but we don't want advocates as judges," Marshall said.

William Eskridge, a Yale Law School professor and author of “Dishonorable Passions,” a book about the history of sodomy laws in America, rejected the contention that sodomy isn’t a civil right. He pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2003 Lawrence vs. Texas decision, which struck down the criminal sodomy law in Texas – and by extension, other states – as unconstitutional.

“That is something you have a constitutional right to do. Adults have that right without being subject to criminal punishment,” agreed Kim Forde-Mazrui, a University of Virginia School of Law professor.  Mazrui also took issue with Marshall’s suggestion that Thorne-Begland’s sexual orientation could hamper his impartiality as a judge.

“If you mean that people are always biased in favor of members of their own group then that would suggest that a straight male or a white judge could not be impartial in a case involving a crime between a straight and a gay person, a man and woman, or a white and black person -- which would render most judges and juries suspect by his conception,” Mazrui said.

“I think that kind of categorical presumption is misguided and there’s no support for that,” added Theodore Ruger, a law professor the University of Pennsylvania. “Many judges -- most famously judges like Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg --  were well-known advocates before taking the bench and they went on to distinguished careers.”

A column in the Richmond Times-Dispatch - one of the most conservative larger newspapers in Virgina - likewise slams Marshall and calls him the equivalent of George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door.  The piece also speculates that the Thorne-Begland crucifixion in the House of Delegates may be a turning point where Virginians begin to wake up to the rampant anti-gay bigotry in Virginia.  Here are highlights:

When a man of unimpeachable qualifications is denied a job because he is gay, we have reached a tipping point beyond what reasonable people should stomach.

The House of Delegates' rejection of a judgeship for Richmond prosecutor Tracy Thorne-Begland carries a stench of bigotry that will shame Virginia beyond this year's legislative session.

This homophobic snub by conservative Republicans — which caught the attention of the national media and the White House — is too brazen to ignore.

"People can empathize and feel personal attacks, and that's what this issue feels like," said Kent Willis, who will retire next month after 23 years as executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia. "This may bring a lot of people who haven't really thought of this issue so much to the side of gay and lesbian rights."

Del. Bob Marshall, a Republican from Prince William, appears content to be the George Wallace of gay and lesbian rights, a defiant symbol standing at the bedroom door. "Sodomy is not a civil right," he pronounced Thursday, burnishing his reputation as an advocate of government intrusion at its most obscene.


Again, Virginia came down on the wrong side of equality and history. How much longer can we be wrong?

As I have noted before, the Virginia GOP wants to turn Virginia into a version of Alabama or Mississippi where bigotry is rampant and a place that progressive and innovative businesses avoid.

Washington Post Slams Virginia GOP

Not to beat a dead horse, but the Washington Post has a great editorial that rips the Virginia GOP a new one over the naked bigotry demonstrated against judicial nominee Tracy Thorne-Begland who suffered the equivalent of a lynching in the Virginia House of Delegates.  The sad episode clear shows the true face of the Republican Party of Virginia and its Christofascist puppeteers at The Family Foundation, a foul "family vales" organization based in Richmond.  Here are highlights from the editorial:

IF ANYTHING, Tracy Thorne-Begland, a top state prosecutor in Richmond with a decade of courtroom experience, is overqualified for a judgeship on the General District Court. Mr. Thorne-Begland, who has prosecuted dozens of homicides and other major felonies, runs one of the biggest commonwealth’s attorney’s offices in Virginia. The caseload of the court to which he was nominated consists mainly of traffic violations, minor crimes and run-of-the-mill civil disputes over contracts and late rent payments.

But the judicial nomination of Mr. Thorne-Begland, a former Navy fighter pilot who is gay, was sabotaged by an ugly campaign of homophobic bigotry led by Virginia Republicans. In a vote at 1 a.m. Tuesday, the GOP-dominated House of Delegates, with an avowed homophobe leading the charge, killed his candidacy, thereby ensuring that Virginia state courts remain free of openly gay judges.

As Richmond’s chief deputy commonwealth’s attorney, he isn’t regarded as a gay rights advocate; he is seen as a consummately professional prosecutor.  But for House Republicans, and for the Family Foundation, an anti-gay group that stirred up opposition to Mr. Thorne-Begland’s nomination, his sexual orientation trumped his copious professional qualifications. Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William), who last year expressed the view that gays are “intrinsically disordered,” denounced the nominee as “an aggressive activist for the pro-homosexual agenda.”

Mr. Marshall — known in Richmond as “Sideshow Bob” — said that, as a gay man living with a domestic partner, Mr. Thorne-Begland had a lifestyle that would impede him from upholding Virginia’s constitution, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman. As if the nominee’s sexual orientation would cripple his ability to preside over traffic cases and misdemeanors.

No matter how they dressed it up, the Republicans’ opposition boiled down to old-fashioned prejudice. Even by voting at 1 a.m., they couldn’t hide the fact that bigotry and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is alive and well in the state of Virginia.

This sad episode conclusively proves the LGBT Virginians cannot expect fair treatment in Virginia, be it in the courts, state employment and just about all other fronts. The Republican Party and its hate group backers continue to do all they can to make us less than full citizens.

GOP Controlled Virginia House of Delegates Sinks Gay Judicial Nominee

Send yet another message to the entire world that Virginia is the home of rank bigotry and discrimination  where LGBT citizens are treated like garbage the GOP controlled Virginia House of Delegates killed the nomination of Tracy Thorne-Begland to a General District Court judgeship.  So much for the United States Constitution's prohibition of religious tests for public positions.  In Virginia, it one doesn't meet the religious criteria of the Christofascists in the Virginia GOP, one has no rights.  It's disgusting and why I tell would be newcomers to Virginia to think twice.  Why move to a state where gays are subject to open contempt and discrimination as a matter of state policy.  Note that the Virginia GOP did its dirty work in the wee hours of the morning this morning.  Note too the cowardice of a number of Democrats - something I'll remember the next time I receive a call for money.  Here are highlights from the Virginian Pilot:

The House of Delegates, voting in Tuesday's early morning hours, blocked an openly gay Richmond prosecutor from appointment to a General District Court judgeship in the city.

Tracy Thorne-Begland received 33 yes votes, 31 no votes - all from Republicans - and 10 abstentions in his bid to become what gay-rights advocates said would have been Virginia's first openly gay jurist. Twenty-six House members, including seven Democrats, did not vote.  A minimum of 51 votes in the 100-member House is required for election.

Thorne-Begland, a former Navy pilot who was honorably discharged after publicly disclosing his sexual orientation, was one of only two candidates among scores of judicial nominees not to be approved during a `round-the-clock marathon that lingered from 1 p.m. Monday to 2 a.m. Tuesday.

 

Among Thorne-Begland's fiercest critics was Del. Robert G. Marshall, an outspokenly anti-gay Republican from Prince William who is among four candidates seeking the GOP's U.S. Senate nomination in next month's primary.

Marshall said he opposed Thorne-Begland on grounds that he denied his true sexual orientation in a statement those entering the armed forces at the time were forced to sign in the era before President Bill Clinton instituted the "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward gays in the military.

 Later, Marshall said he also considered Thorne-Begland unfit for the bench because being openly gay clashes with his duty to uphold the Virginia Constitution, which includes an amendment that defines marriage solely as a monogamous union between a man and a woman.

 

Thorne-Begland's chief House defender was also a Republican. Del. Manoli Loupassi, a Richmond lawyer, has known and practiced for years in courtrooms with Thorne-Begland, a successful deputy commonwealth's attorney in charge of handling the capital city's heavy caseloads of homicides, assaults and other violent crimes.

"He's been doing his job and he's been doing it well. He's been protecting us from criminals," Loupassi said. "I have known this man for a very long time and I believe that he absolutely will carry out the duties of his office in a dignified way and a correct way."

Virginia's first openly gay legislator, Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, said he was "ashamed and disgusted" by the "homophobic behavior of the House of Delegates."

Have I mentioned that I hate Virginia?  I'd also note that this kind of rank bigotry is why I cannot support ANY GOP candidate currently.

Del. Bob Marshall Says Judicial Nominee Is Unfit Because He's Gay

Proving once again that he's a complete nasty, bigoted ass (and that Rep. James Lankford clearly isn't the only total asshole within the GOP), Virginia Delegate Bob Marshall (pictured at left) - one of the architects of Virginia's anti-gay Marshall-Newman Amendment and who has admitted that he'd like to drive all gays from Virginia - is challenging the nomination of Richmond prosecutor Tracy Thorne-Begland for the Richmond, Virginia, General District Court bench.  Like Rep. Lankford in the prior post, Marshall seems to suggest that being gay is a choice and a "behavior."  Among Marshall's allegations is that Thorne-Begland (who I know) is incapable of impartiality.  Never mind that General District Court cases virtually never involve gay rights issues since such courts have limited jurisdiction.  Obviously, Marshall (who I suspect believes that the only good gay is a dead gay) is projecting his own total inability to be impartial onto Thorne-Begland.  Marshall, who is consumed religious based bigotry and homophobia, could not in my opinion be impartial if his life depended on it.  WTVR-TV has coverage on Marshall's latest anti-gay jihad: 

RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR)–A Richmond prosecutor is being challenged as a judicial nominee, because of his advocacy for gay rights.

When the General Assembly meets on Monday, lawmakers will vote to appoint several judges.

It’s not usually a process that creates a lot of buzz, but this time around it is.  Delegate Bob Marshall said he will seek to remove the name of Richmond prosecutor Tracy Thorne-Begland from a list of proposed District Court judicial appointments.  “I don’t even think it’s proper to put his name forward because of his behavior,” said Marshall, who called Thorne-Begland “a homosexual activist,” in a press release.

Thorne-Begland has been nominated to serve as a judge for Richmond’s General District Court, but, Marshall challenges the nomination on the grounds of the prosecutor’s sexual orientation.  “We have a constitution which says marriage is between one man and one woman and if he’s taking an oath, he has to uphold and defend that as a judge,” said Marshall.  “If his lifestyle is exactly contrary to that… I don’t see how he could do that,” he said.

“I think it’s unfortunate, said Democratic Senator Donald McEachin.”Tracy fought for this country.”
More than 20 years ago, Thorne-Begland graduated at the top of his class from Navy flight school in Pensacola, Fla.

McEachin, Thorne-Begland’s sponsor in the Senate, says that Marshall is ignoring the prosecutor’s record.
“Bob just has a phobia…that’s the real problem,” said McEachin.  McEachin went on to say Thorne-Begland is no different from the other nominees.

“Everyone has a background who comes onto the bench, but, we select judges to be able to put aside their backgrounds, to put aside whatever personal passions they have to be a judge,” said McEachin.

Marshall truly will not be happy until he makes Virginia a worldwide laughingstock.  If Marshall had his way, all Virginians would be Kool-Aid drinking, Bible beating  Neanderthals.   And gays are not Marshall's only targets in his quest to drag Virginia back into the Dark Ages.  He also sponsored some of the most anti-women's rights bills in the Virginia General Assembly, including a "personhood" bill for fertilized eggs that fortunately died this year.