The Virginia GOP's Fight Against Democracy

Not only does the Virginia Republican Party support a theocracy of sorts - despite the prohibitions in the U.S. Constitution against an established religion - but it is increasingly anti-democratic as reflected by its efforts to disenfranchise as many voters as possible (minorities are the favorite target) and the efforts of the Christofascists/Tea Party elements to turn nominations into coronations by a select few who support the theocratic, anti-democracy agenda.  Sadly, in the highly gerrymandered districts pushed through by the Virginia GOP, the party extremists continue to win in elections.  In statewide contests, however, Virginia's changing demographics make victory for GOP candidates increasingly elusive.  The Virginia GOP's solution?  Double down and get even more extreme.  An editorial in the Washington Post looks at the phenomenon.  Here are highlights:

THE FIX was in from the start when Virginia Republicans picked their ticket for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general in 2013. 

Hard-line conservatives who control the state party apparatus decreed that the nominations would be determined not by primaries but by a convention, a mechanism well suited to limit the number of participants.

In the event, just 8,000 of the Republican faithful showed up — representing perhaps half of 1 percent of the party’s sympathizers in the state — and the right-wing ticket they picked was swept in the fall by the Democrats, who held much more widely attended nominating primaries.

Virginia has not elected a Republican to any statewide position since 2009, nor has it elected one to the U.S. Senate since 2002. 
 
That string of losses has coincided with venomous internecine divisions in the Republican ranks, in which hard-liners generally have prevailed by forcing nominating conventions, most of which have yielded hard-line candidates.

Rather than rethinking that losing strategy, Virginia’s conservative activists now seem inclined to double down on it. They are pressing for the GOP to hold a convention rather than a state-run primary to choose a presidential nominee in 2016.

That move would be designed to favor more ideological candidates, such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas or Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, and handicap more moderate candidates, such as former Florida governor Jeb Bush.

In addition to giving more extreme candidates a leg up, the effect would be undemocratic. Tens of thousands of moderate Republicans — the sort of voters who might go to the polls for a primary but are unlikely to travel dozens or hundreds of miles to a convention — would be excluded.

Tens of millions of Americans might not be committed to one party or the other, but surely most would favor more participatory elections and more moderate candidates. By pressing for a process that would produce neither, hard-line Republicans are pursuing a losing strategy — not just for themselves but also for voters.

Unfortunately, the Virginia GOP is becoming akin to a insane religious cult - something not surprising given the reality that The Family Foundation for all practical purposes authors GOP policies in Virginia.  Until the Christofascists' stranglehold on the Virginia GOP is broken, expect things to become progressively worse.

"Ex-Gay" Leader Of Christian Group Suspect in Wife's Murder

The parade of hypocrisy, delusion and evil on the part of "godly Christians" just seems to continue non-stop.  News reports out of Missouri bring perhaps the most bizarre story yet: an "ex-gay" ordering the murder of his wife after involving her in sex orgy rituals and having sex with male members of his "prayer group" which appears to be affiliated with the International House of Prayer, a "charismatic movement" headed by the virulently anti-gay Pastor Lou Engle.  Frankly, I'm not totally surprised inasmuch as anyone who has claimed to be "ex-gay' is suffering from delusions and has obvious psychological/emotional health issues.  Here are excerpts from the Kansas City Star concerning Tyler Deaton, supposed "ex-gay" and his "Christian" cult:

Tyler Deaton gathered his followers one more time to his wife’s Kansas City funeral. It was Nov. 6, and they wept for Bethany Deaton, dead at 27. They chose this spot, a Longview Lake funeral home, looking out its picture windows on the same serene water where, by all appearances, Bethany had gone to take her own life a week before.

While Deaton spoke in calm and assuring tones, at least one of his closest inner circle apparently was starting to come undone.  Three days later, investigators say, 23-year-old Micah Moore would go to police and uncork the terrible secrets that allegedly occurred over several months at a Grandview home where Deaton and other members of his religious group lived.

Witnesses told of a clan of young adults making sex part of their religious experience, of men in the group sexually assaulting Bethany over months, and of Deaton’s role as their “spiritual leader.”  But Moore’s darkest admission, according to court records, was that Deaton feared Bethany was about to reveal the group’s secrets.

Moore confessed that he had murdered Bethany and tried to make it look like suicide, and, according to court documents, he said Deaton told him to do it.

Deaton and several others graduated in May 2009 and migrated to Kansas City to continue their religious exploration at the International House of Prayer’s booming school and ministry for missionaries. Bethany went, too. The parent who saw them as innocent followers watched them go as young people of strong faith, imagining lives as missionaries.

One of his group’s stark positions on Scripture was that homosexuality was wrong. Deaton’s stance against it weighed heavily because members said he had “struggled with being gay.”
“He struggled with it, but he overcame it,” a member of his group at Southwestern said. “It was a victory.”

Bethany was sexually assaulted over a period of months while drugged with someone else’s prescription anti-psychotic, witnesses in the house told authorities. This was happening, the witnesses alleged, in a period of time that male members in the house were involved in sexual relationships with Deaton, one saying it was part of a “religious experience.”

The statements unfolded with Moore allegedly saying that people in the group feared Bethany was about to tell her therapist about the assaults, and that he killed her with the plastic bag over her head at Longview Lake.  He did it, his statement to detectives said, because Deaton told him he knew Moore “had it in him to do it.”