Cuccinelli Launches Website Campaign to Retain Virginia's Sodomy Statue

GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli remains absolutely obsessed with sodomy - perhaps because as a closet case he secretly longs to engage in it himself? - and has now launched an effort to retain Virginia's "crimes against nature" via a website that dishonestly claims that a complete striking down of the law as unconstitutional as was done by the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit will somehow endanger children and protect sex offenders.  Like most things that comes out of Cuccinelli's mouth, the story line is simply untrue and is part and parcel with his slavish obedience to The Family Foundation which seeks to impose a Christofascist theocracy on all Virginians.  Per these extremists, only the so-called missionary position is appropriate for sexual relations and gays in particular need to be criminalized.  One of the ironies of the Fourth Circuit's ruling is that following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, it was Cuccinelli and GOP zealots like Del. Bob Marshall who refused to reform Virginia's sodomy statute out of a desire to use it as a vehicle to continue to harass gays and those they don't like.  GayRVA looks at Cuccinelli's batshitery.  Here are excerpts:

Virginia Attorney General, and Republican Gubernatorial Candidate, Ken Cuccinelli has launched a website to build support for his fight to keep VA sodomy laws on the books, and attack Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe.

Cuccinelli’s fight to keep sodomy laws on Virginia’s books come 10 years after sodomy laws were ruled unconstitutional. In a case from earlier this year, William MacDonald, who was accused of sodomy after having sex with two minor girls, managed to take VA’s sodomy laws the district court which ruled them unconstitutional.

In an opinion written by Judge Robert King, one of the Court of Appeals judges that heard the MacDonald case, he suggested Virginia’s General assembly should be the ones removing the Sodomy law, or re-defining it. “The anti-sodomy provision does not mention the word “minor,”” wrote King, “nor does it remotely suggest that the regulation of sexual relations between adults and children had anything to do with its enactment.”

In an earlier conversation with Lambda Legal’s Gregg Nevins, it was explained that the solution to VA’s problems is not keeping an unconstitutional law, but rather working with the state’s general assembly to develop laws that address the issues. “It’s not a ruling that VA can’t have a sodomy law, but they can’t rely on the old sodomy law which doesn’t require any of those things that might make it a legitimate law, it just says “anyone who has oral or anal sex is a felony.” That dog wont hunt,” said Nevins. “They need to give up the fight and pass a legitimate law if that’s what they want.”

Cuccinelli, after failing to get a rehearing en banc at the Court of Appeals court, appealed the overturning of VA’s Sodomy laws to the United States Supreme Court in late June.

The Atlantic also slams Cuccinelli's bizarre obsession with sodomy:

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's campaign for governor isn't going great. He's behind in at least one poll. He's floating on the outskirts of the still-expanding scandal surrounding Bob McDonnell, the current governor. But Cuccinelli has a plan to combat that. He will run a campaign powered by sodomy. In opposition, of course. Cuccinelli is a Republican.

Cuccinelli, too, has been called out for accepting unreported gifts from the donor that is threatening the viability of McDonnell. His campaign, in other words, could certainly be on stronger footing.

For some voters, Cuccinelli is hoping that his tough-as-nails commitment to locking up criminals and cracking down on sex offenses will earn their votes. For other voters, voters who share his thoughts on natural law, Cuccinelli's new push is an obvious and exaggerated wink. If Cuccinelli can't actually run in 2004, when Bush won the state by eight points, he might as well pretend he is.

The Supreme Court will hopefully reject Cuccinelli's appeal without comment.  Virginia voters need to reject Cuccinelli and his fellow nutcases and homophobes on the GOP ticket in November.  Vector Press has this thought on Cuccinelli and the sodomy statute hysteria:

And then there's the precedent. Mark Foley, Larry Craig, Bob Allen, Glenn Murphy Jr., Ken Mehlman... Really, the Grand Old Party has so many closet cases you start to think the closet has some recursive geometry going on. And the one other thing all these closeted Republicans shared was their support for anti-gay legislation as they personally needed it to remain straight.  So, now taking bets on when the Ken Cuccinelli gay sex scandal kicks off...

ACLU to Virginia Police: Ignore Cuccinelli's Opinion

Would that we could all ignore Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli, Virginia's nutcase Attorney General who thinks that whatever he wants is what the law will be. The man - besides being delusional - has delusions of grander which I hope will be squelched either by the Cooch getting into trouble grossly overstepping his authority or his being outed by some former male trick - the rumors continue - who just cannot tolerate Cooch's posturing and hypocrisy (this is what ultimately took down former Congressman Ed "Mega Phone" Schrock with some help from yours truly, Mike Rogers and some other folks). Recently, Kookinelli issued an opinion in collusion with Del. Bob Marshall, the GOP's Darth Vader equivalent in Virginia, who detests immigrants almost as much as he hates gays. The outcome was Kookinelli's opinion stating that law enforcement officers could question those stopped for any reason about their immigration/citizenship status. Never mind that a federal court has stayed this activity authorized under Arizona's recently effective anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic immigration law. Now the ACLU has advised police across Virginia to ignore Kookinelli's opinion and therby avoid lawsuits and problems. Here are highlights from the Virginian Pilot on the ACLU's challenge to Kookinelli's dictatorial mandates:
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From the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia: Ignore Cuccinelli. His opinion lacks a legal foundation and presents constitutional and public policy problems.
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Cuccinelli issued the advisory opinion Monday at the request of state Del. Robert G. Marshall. Rebecca K. Glenberg, legal director of the ACLU of Virginia, followed up with a letter to Virginia's police chiefs Thursday saying the opinion is legally flawed and should be disregarded.
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So how do Virginia police respond to these opposing viewpoints? They continue what they've been doing, according to Dana Schrad, executive director of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police. "In terms of practice and policy, it varies across the state depending on the priorities of the locality," Schrad said. In some localities, police generally don't ask about immigration status because doing so could have "a chilling effect" on the immigrant community's cooperation with law enforcement, she said. In others, officers inquire.
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Schrad emphasized that the attorney general's opinion was not requested by law enforcement, and said she received no questions from the association's members about the issue before or after the opinion's release. "It has been clearly understood by law enforcement what their authority is," she said.
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Marshall, the legislator who asked for the opinion, represents a county whose crackdowns on its large immigrant population drew national attention in 2007 and 2008. Last week, the chairman of Prince William County's board of supervisors established a political action committee to press for legislation in Virginia similar the Arizona law.
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Glenberg said in her letter to the police chiefs that Cuccinelli's opinion failed to acknowledge that a federal judge recently blocked the Arizona law's key provisions, including the requirement that officers inquire about immigration status when they have reason to believe a person they've stopped may be in the country illegally.

She also said that because most police officers have not been trained on immigration law enforcement, which is primarily a federal responsibility, allowing them to question people about their status "is an invitation for racial profiling and potential Equal Protection violations."
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Given the dire financial straits of most Virginia municipalities, the last thing they need is litigation arising from some chauvinist cop with an overgrown ego acting on Cuccinelli's flawed opinion - litigation in which the municipality could lose big time financially.

New Deeds Ads Target McDonnell on Thesis

Thankfully, Creigh Deeds' campaign has put together ads that will help insure that more Virginians know the real Bob "Taliban Bob"McDonnell - as opposed to the carefully crafted and false moderate image McDonnell needs to win in November. The ads - one of which is set out below - do what is needed most: they tie McDonnell's thesis views to his record in the Virginia General Assembly. In short, the thesis was not some academic exercise but has been in fact a blue print of how McDonnell has sought to govern. Deeds needs to keep the ads coming.

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On a similar note, I wish that Democrat candidate Steve Shannon would do something similar with GOP candidate Ken Cuccinelli who is so crazy he makes the real Bob McDonnell seem almost normal. Cuccinelli has fully supported every Christianist effort of Bob McDonnell and then some. The thought of Cuccinelli in the attorney general's office scares the daylights out of me. One can only hope that as voters come to realize that McDonnell is not what he claims it will begin to drag down the entire GOP slate.

It is one thing for candidates to hold their own religious views. It is something totally different when the candidates agenda is to force those views on all Virginians. McDonnell - like the majority of the Uber-Christians - view freedom of religions as their right, but want to restrict religious freedom for everyone else. This year's GOP slate MUST be defeated.