Ken Cuccinelli Seeks to Amend Virginia Constitution To Allow Taxpayer Funding of Religious Schools

I have said for a long time that GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli is a religious extremists who if given his way would destroy the separation of church and state handed down from the Founding Fathers.  Now, Cuccinelli is proposing that the Virginia Constitution be amended to allow taxpayer funding of religious schools thereby diverting funding from the Commonwealth's public schools.  This type of proposal was anathema to the Founding Fathers who wanted to established religion and no mandatory public support of of sectarian institutions.  In contrast, what Cuccinelli is proposes gives the theocrats at The Family Foundation a veritable wet dream.  Here are highlights from Think Progress:

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R), his party’s nominee in this November’s gubernatorial election, unveiled a 12-point education plan Tuesday. Among his proposals: Virginia should amend its constitution to allow public funding for religious education.

Cuccinelli, who has blasted the Catholic Church for creating a “culture of dependency on government, not God,” proposed that Virginia should divert taxpayer funds from public education to parochial school vouchers. He claimed that the separation of church and state provisions in Article IV, Section 16 of Virginia’s constitution were merely anti-Catholic bigotry:

Virginia has provisions in its constitution that explicitly bar government aid to “sectarian” schools or institutions, including the so-called Blaine Amendment. The Blaine Amendment was passed as a result of anti-Catholic bigotry in American politics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, which made clear that the federal Constitution permits aid through school choice programs, Virginia’s Blaine Amendment restricts the ability to enact broad-based school choice programs. A state constitutional amendment is needed that is narrowly drafted to allow for school choice programs that do not restrict parents’ choices about what is best for each of their children.

  [P]ublic finding to any sectarian institutions . . . [is] explicitly prohibited by Virginia’s constitution.

While the nation and Virginia were founded on the belief that religions should be free from government interference in teaching their beliefs, it has also been the longstanding view that the government should not pay for religions to do so.

Cuccinelli seemingly ignores his [Thomas Jefferson's] 1779 Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom. In that law, passed by the Virginia General Assembly in 1786, Jefferson wrote, “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical,” and that “even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness.”

Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom is still part of the Code of Virginia even though the GOP controlled General Assembly has repeatedly ignored its principles and enacted blatantly religious based laws that marginalize gays and others who do not conform to Christofascist religious beliefs.  Here are more quotes from the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom which is one of three things Jefferson wanted to be remembered for (the other two are founding the University of Virginia and authoring the Declaration of Independence):

Almighty God hath created the mind free,and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from theplan of the Holy author of our religion, . .

the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time . . .

to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own . . . .

What Jefferson so eloquently condemned is precisely what Cuccinelli and the extremists at The Family Foundation seek to inflict on all Virginians.  Cuccinelli MUST be defeated in November.  Otherwise, the days of religious freedom for all in Virginia is numbered.  

Wednesday Morning Male Beauty

McDonnell and Cuccinelli Respond to Gay Marriage Suit

In a somewhat bizarre argument - namely that they enjoy sovereign immunity and are apparently by implication above the U.S. Constitution - Bob "Rolex Bob" McDonnell and Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli have asked that the lawsuit filed against them in U.S. District Court in Norfolk be dismissed.  I have yet to see a copy of the filing, but from the coverage in the Richmond Times Dispatch, McDonnell and Kookinelli would apparently leave the other defendant in the action, the Clerk of the Norfolk Circuit Court to his own devices.  Here is what the Virginia Constitution says about the responsibilities of the Governor in relevant part:

Article V Section 7. Executive and administrative powers.  The Governor shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

As for the Attorney General, the Code of Virginia states in part as follows:

2.2-500. Attorney General to be chief executive officer; duties generally.  The Attorney General shall be the chief executive officer of the Department of Law, and shall perform such duties as may be provided by law.

2.2-513. Counsel for Commonwealth in federal matters.  The Attorney General shall represent the interests of the Commonwealth, its departments, boards, institutions and commissions in matters before or controversies with the officers and several departments of the government of the United States.

Despite these provisions McDonnell and Cuccinelli seemingly are claiming that they have nothing to do with the states anti-gay marriage laws.  Here are highlights from the Times Dispatch article:

Gov. Bob McDonnell and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli have filed to be dismissed from legal action against them as representatives of the state in a federal lawsuit brought by a gay couple from Norfolk who were denied a marriage license.

Court records show that McDonnell and Cuccinelli asked the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Norfolk to dismiss the plaintiffs’ suit on grounds of sovereign immunity.
 

In his complaint, Solicitor General E. Duncan Getchell Jr., who represents McDonnell and Cuccinelli in the case, cited the 14th Amendment because “limitations on eligibility to marry in Virginia” are “enforced by withholding a marriage license as happened in this case.”

Getchell continued that neither the governor nor the attorney general has “any proximity to, responsibility for, or a special relationship with the laws of marital eligibility. As a consequence both should be dismissed on the ground of sovereign immunity.”

I'm sure the Clerk of the Norfolk Circuit Court will be thrilled to learn that he apparently has the burden of defending Virginia's anti-gay laws under the Taliban Bob/Kookinelli theory to the case.  Once I see the pleading, I will post an update.

The International Olympic Commission: 1936 Deja Vu

This image pretty much says it all.  Hitler gave "assurances" too - and we all know where that led to.  Move the 2014 Winter Games.

North Carolina: GOP Extremism Unrestrained

If one wants to see what the GOP agenda for America, North Carolina offers a pretty good glimpse as a GOP controlled legislature and GOP governor run rampantly out of control and enact far right dream legislation that does everything from further restricting abortion to disenfranchising a significant percentage of voters.  Voters in Virginia would be wise to look southward to see what a GOP victory in Virginia in November would usher in.  A piece in the New York Times looks at what is happening in North Carolina - things that should have been foreseen by the cretins who either stayed home on election day or who stupidly believed GOP lies.  Anyone familiar with today's GOP base should have seen all of this coming.  Here are article excerpts:

When Pat McCrory, a Republican former mayor of Charlotte, was elected governor last year, he pledged to “bring this state together,” and to focus on bread-and-butter issues amid an ailing economy.

But with Republicans controlling all branches of the state government for the first time in more than a century, the legislature pushed through a wide range of conservative change. The Republicans not only cut taxes and business regulations, as many had expected, but also allowed stricter regulations on abortion clinics, ended teacher tenure, blocked the expansion of Medicaid, cut unemployment benefits, removed obstacles to the death penalty, allowed concealed guns in bars and restaurants, and mandated the teaching of cursive writing. 

Just this week, Mr. McCrory signed into law strict voter identification requirements, prohibiting same-day registration and cutting early voting.
Lawsuits have been filed — including one on Monday by the N.A.A.C.P. — and protests are taking place almost weekly in Raleigh, the capital, and other cities, leaving North Carolinians across the political spectrum worried that the state’s often-hailed political pragmatism may have given way to the ideological warfare of Washington. 

[I]n the 2010 elections, a cycle deeply unfavorable for Democrats nationwide, North Carolina Republicans won both houses of the legislature for the first time in a century. More critically, they also won control of redistricting. One year later, they drew districts guaranteeing safe seats for a Republican majority for years to come. 

In 2012, with Ms. Perdue’s late decision not to run again, Mr. McCrory won the governor’s office easily. Naming Mr. Pope as his budget director, he promised an agenda focused on economic growth, even pledging not to sign into law new restrictions on abortion. But Republicans in the legislature were not interested in half-measures. 

Doug Clark, a columnist for The News and Record of Greensboro, welcomed the partisan change, but he now sees the state’s Republican leadership as fostering “extreme partisanship and abuse of power.” He questioned why the legislature, after passing laws governing abortion, guns and voter identification, and frequently trying to exert control over issues traditionally left to local governments, never got around to passing the governor’s plan to overhaul job recruiting. 

While the number of North Carolina voters over all has risen since 2008, the number who are registered as either Republicans or Democrats has shrunk.  Unaffiliated voters now make up more than a quarter of the voting population. 

“Honest, I’m not much into North Carolina,” said Cyril Seacat, 78, who moved here decades ago to work in a Glen Raven-owned mill and was sitting in his truck outside a Walmart. “I don’t think they’re doing much of anything right.”

More Tuesday Male Beauty

ABA Unanimously Passes Resolution Condeming "Gay Panic" Defense

Time and time again we have sadly seen those who murder gays use the "gay panic defense" - i.e., that they panicked and flipped out and acted unintentionally - to justify murder and convince juries to acquit them of what is by any other standard noting less than cold blooded murder.  Now, the American Bar Association ("ABA") has adopted a resolution condemning the "gay panic defense" and seeking to have its use curtailed.  It goes without saying that the "godly Christian" folk will be condemning the ABA just as that constantly condemn gays.  Here are highlights on the ABA's action via The Edge:

As reported in the ABA Journal, yesterday during the annual meeting of the American Bar Association in San Francisco, the House of Delegates - the ABA’s governing body, unanimously passed a resolution urging federal, state, local and territorial governments to pass legislation curtailing the availability and effectiveness of the use of "gay panic" and "trans panic" defenses by criminal defendants.

In a press release issued by the National LGBT Bar Association, executive director D’Arcy Kemnitz said "The ABA’s adoption of this measure sends a clear message to state legislatures that legal professionals find no validity in the sham defenses mounted by those who seek to perpetuate discrimination and stereotypes as an excuse for violence." Further stating, "The ’gay panic’ and ’trans panic’ defenses have been used to try and excuse some of the most heinous violence exacted against innocent victims. State legislatures should immediately move to enact the ABA’s recommendation by passing laws banning ’panic’ defenses."

The full language of the adopted resolution reads as follows:

RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges federal, state, local and territorial governments to take legislative action to curtail the availability and effectiveness of the "gay panic" and "trans panic" defenses, which seek to partially or completely excuse crimes such as murder and assault on the grounds that the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity is to blame for the defendant’s violent reaction. Such legislative action should include:

(a) Requiring courts in any criminal trial or proceeding, upon the request of a party, to instruct the jury not to let bias, sympathy, prejudice, or public opinion influence its decision about the victims, witnesses, or defendants based upon sexual orientation or gender identity; and

(b) Specifying that neither a non-violent sexual advance, nor the discovery of a person’s sex or gender identity, constitutes legally adequate provocation to mitigate the crime of murder to manslaughter, or to mitigate the severity of any non-capital crime.

 The theory of "gay panic" goes back to 1920 when the term was first coined by psychiatrist Edward J. Kempf in his textbook "Psychopathology", in which he describes an acute, brief reactive psychosis suffered by the target of unwanted homosexual advances.

"Gay panic" has been used as a defense in recent years on a number of high profile assault and murder cases, most notably the 1995 trial of Jonathan Schmitz, who killed his friend Scott Amedure after learning, during a taping of "The Jenny Jones Show," that Amedure was sexually attracted to him. Schmitz confessed to committing the crime, but claimed that Amedure’s homosexual overtures angered and humiliated him. Three years later, the defense would be used during the trial of the two men accused of killing university student Matthew Shepard. The strategy proved ineffective or inadmissible and in both cases, ended with convictions for the defendants.

"Too many people have hidden for far too long behind baseless ’panic’ defenses," Kemnitz said. "Judges, lawmakers and juries must demand that these practices come to an end and juries must be provided with instructions advising juries to make their decisions free of improper bias and prejudice. Today’s ABA resolution is an important first step towards realizing that goal."

The reality is that anyone who doesn't have issues with their own sexual orientation - which rules out Ken Cuccinelli - isn't going to react violently to the discovery that some one is gay or that said individual finds them attractive.  The defense is in a word bullshit.

National Organization for Marriage Cheers Russia's Anti-Gay Laws

I've often said that the dishonesty of the National Organization for Marriage ("NOM") knows no limits.  While claiming to be solely concerned with "protecting the sanctity of marriage," NOM in fact promotes reparative therapy - which is condemned by EVERY legitimate medical and mental health association in America - and promotes anti-gay lies.  Now, totally revealing its true agenda, NOM is praising Russia's anti-gay laws and providing a glimpse of what the Christofascist would do in America if they were allowed to do so.   Here are  highlights from Gay Star News:

Rev. William Owens, a religious liaison for the US group National Organization for Marriage, is proudly defending Russia's anti-gay propaganda laws.

According to the site Right Wing Watch, Owen emailed members of the Coalition of African-American Pastors; CAAP, like NOM, is against same sex marriage.

Owens also went after LGBT organizations who are calling for a boycott of the Sochi Winter Olympics..

'I believe that this is just another one of their ploys to cover their real intent, which is to force the acceptance of a lifestyle that is a clear violation of American values and moral law.'

Owens ends his email with an assertion that the US is in steep moral decline and in need of pray.

'I must declare to you that our nation is in trouble. We must pray without ceasing for our nation and we ask for your support to help us stay in the fight.'

As reported by Right Wing Watch, after the Supreme Court's decision on the Defense of Marriage of Act, Owen promised anti-gay marriage advocates 'are going to fight to the end, we are not going to give up, we are going to fight like we fought to get civil rights...'

Owens is in my view - like so many Virginia black pastors who act as water carriers and flunkies for the white supremacists at The Family Foundation - shows his ignorance and stupidity by supporting organizations that are as much anti-black as they are anti-gay.  He might just as well stencil "I'm a cretin" or "I'm a moron" on his forehead.  But meanwhile, it remains imperative to expose NOM's lies, hypocrisy and true anti-gay agenda.

Rev. William Owens, a religious liaison for the US group National Organization for Marriage, is proudly defending Russia's anti-gay propaganda laws.
According to the site Right Wing Watch, Owen emailed members of the Coalition of African-American Pastors; CAAP, like NOM, is against same sex marriage.
- See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/national-organization-marriages-religious-liaison-hails-russias-anti-gay-laws130813#sthash.SNwMwCaS.dpuf

Rev. William Owens, a religious liaison for the US group National Organization for Marriage, is proudly defending Russia's anti-gay propaganda laws.
According to the site Right Wing Watch, Owen emailed members of the Coalition of African-American Pastors; CAAP, like NOM, is against same sex marriage.
- See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/national-organization-marriages-religious-liaison-hails-russias-anti-gay-laws130813#sthash.SNwMwCaS.dpuf

Tuesday Morning Male Beauty

Willaim & Mary Rector Warns Virginia on Gay Marriage Ban

William & Mary is one of Virginia's academic jewels and is also the second oldest university in America with only Harvard being older.  As such, William & Mary competes on a high level for the best faculty and researchers.  And now, William & Mary's outgoing Rector is warning that Virginia's ban on gay marriage will harm William & Mary and by extension, Virginia's other top colleges and universities because top academics simply will not want to take positions that would require moving to a socially backward, anti-gay state.  Ken Cuccinelli and his equally insane GOP ticket mates may scoff, but bigotry does carry a price.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post: 

Jeff Trammell, a D.C. lobbyist and gay Democratic activist, was elated when the Supreme Court ruled in late June that the federal government must treat legally married gay couples the same as married heterosexual couples.

But as the outgoing leader of the College of William and Mary’s governing Board of Visitors, Trammell also worried that the ruling would make Virginia’s vaunted public universities less attractive for gay academics.

The high court decision adds “a substantial incentive for our gay and lesbian faculty and staff to leave the Commonwealth’s public universities and colleges,” Trammell wrote to other Virginia higher education leaders in a June 26 e-mail, hours after the ruling was issued.

Trammell had earlier noted — in a letter on June 11 — that the presidents of the University of Virginia, George Mason University and William and Mary had pushed for the state to allow public universities to offer domestic partner health benefits in late 2009. That effort stalled after Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) took office in January 2010.

We already have lost valued gay and lesbian faculty to our competitors who do not discriminate. With changes in federal benefits soon available to legally married gay couples, we will lose more. Two able individuals told me [recently] that they are leaving for another state — one a top professor [in a science-technology field] and another a university administrator just recruited to Virginia a few years ago.

At a minimum, the state should immediately allow our public colleges and universities to offer health insurance and other equal benefits to the same-sex partners of their faculty and staff. The commonwealth is undervaluing our universities and their attractiveness to businesses that prize education. Everyone, Democrats and Republicans, needs to come together to end this discrimination.

Some gay and lesbian faculty and staff — including at the University of Virginia, George Mason, Virginia Commonwealth, Virginia Tech and William and Mary — have sent me their stories: senior professors whose partners had cancer and no health insurance; researchers who left the commonwealth, taking major grants with them; faculty who, unlike their straight colleagues, are paying out of their pockets for costly individual policies for their partners and who resent the discrimination; young professors and administrators who are looking to leave the state; and so forth.