More Wednesday Male Beauty

Mississippi Senate Passes Most Anti-Gay Bill in America

By almost every standard, Mississippi routinely ends up ranked last in the nation and, in many respects is Exhibit A of what Republican rule brings to a state.  Now, while already lagging behind every other state economically, the Mississippi Senate has passed an animus motivated bill that some say is the most sweeping in its mistreatment of LGBT citizens and grants the most special rights to knuckle dragging Christofascists.  One can only assume the state Senate wanted to the state to be known for something other the highest poverty rates and highest teen pregnancy rates in America.  (When I lived in Alabama years ago, we always said "Thank God for Mississippi" since it ALWAYS ranked worse than Alabama).  BuzzFeed looks at this legislative travesty that seeks to make far right Christianity a de facto state religion while trampling on the religious liberty of all others.  Here are highlights:

The Republican-dominated Mississippi Senate voted 31-17 on Wednesday night for a religious freedom bill that critics believe is the the most sweeping anti-LGBT legislation in the United States, allowing denial of products and services in a wide range of venues.

Immediately after the vote, a Democrat proposed a motion to reconsider — thereby requiring another vote later this week, which many consider a procedural formality, but could buy critics time to build opposition.

The bill already passed the House 80-39 in February. However, the Senate’s version was amended slightly, and the House must concur before the legislation can go to the governor.

Republicans, who hold a majority in both chambers, have argued the bill fixes problems created for people of faith by the Supreme Court’s 2015 marriage equality ruling.

“It gives protection to those in the state who cannot in a good conscience provide services for a same-sex marriage,” Sen. Jennifer Branning said in an address to her colleagues.

Democrats fiercely contend the bill is overly broad, specifically targeting LGBT people for discrimination in numerous settings, thereby inviting backlash that other states, including North Carolina, have faced for passing laws targeting LGBT people.

“This is probably the worst religious freedom bill to date,” Ben Needham, director of Project One America, an LGBT advocacy group in the Deep South, told BuzzFeed News.

Critics widely argue the bill would explicitly allow the denial of services, goods, wedding products, medical treatment, housing, and employment to LGBT people.

Specifically, House Bill 1523 would protect individuals, religious organizations, and certain businesses who take actions due to their religious objections to same-sex marriage. It would also protect those who object to transgender people. The bill says they could not face government retribution if they were acting based on “sincerely held” religious beliefs.

Further, it covers those who decline for reasons of faith to provide counseling services, foster care, and adoption services — even, apparently, those receiving government funding. Clerks who issue marriage licenses could also recuse themselves.

Democratic Sen. John Horhn argued the bill was inherently discriminatory.

Gov. Phil Bryant did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News’ a request to comment on whether he would veto the measure or allow it become law if it reaches his desk.  However, Bryant told WLOX last week he doesn’t think the bill is discriminatory.

“I think it gives some people as I appreciate it, the right to be able to say, ‘That’s against my religious beliefs and I don’t need to carry out that particular task,’” he said.

The 13-page measure prohibits the government from “discriminating” against a person and certain organizations for acting on their religious convictions.

It defines “person” broadly — including “sole proprietorship, or closely held company, partnership, association, organization, firm, corporation, cooperative, trust, society or other closely held entity.”   

“It is reminiscent of what happened 50 or 60 years ago in this same state,” Fleming told BuzzFeed News. “People say that it is just religious, but there were people who had a religious belief that black and white people should be segregated, and you’re opening that Pandora’s box again.” 

Call me perverse, but I long for the day when conservative Christians are a small enough minority that the rest of us can push for passage of legislation that strips these foul individuals of non-discrimination protections and allows them to be treated in the manner that they have treated others for decades if not centuries. 

Governor Terry McAuliffe Vetoes Anti-Gay License to Discriminate Bill

Proving yet again that elections matter, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe kept his word and vetoed an anti-gay bill passed by the Republican controlled Virginia General Assembly that would have granted special rights to Christofascists who sought to exempt themselves from non-discrimination laws on the basis of claimed religious belief.  The bill was one of the priority pieces of legislation of The Family Foundation, a viciously anti-gay, anti-modernity "family values" organization.  In vetoing the animus motivated bill, McAuliffe noted that such license to discriminate laws are bad for business - not to mention, unconstitutional - as North Carolina is finding out with a vengeance.  The Virginian Pilot has details on McAuliffe's veto.  Here are highlights:

As promised, Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Wednesday vetoed a bill that said no minister or religious organization could be penalized for acting on a belief that marriage should be only between a man and a woman.

The Republican-controlled General Assembly passed the legislation, SB41, this year as a religious freedom bill.

McAuliffe, however, said that religious freedoms already are protected, and that state Sen. Bill Carrico’s bill was unconstitutional and discriminatory. The Democratic governor signed the veto on the air during WTOP radio’s “Ask the Governor” program.  “We can’t tolerate that,” McAuliffe said. “We cannot have fear and persecution.”

He said existing law and the First Amendment protect religious freedom.

The bill passed 59-38 in the House of Delegates and 20-19 in the Senate during this year’s General Assembly session.

“This legislation is also bad for business and creates roadblocks as we try to build the new Virginia economy,” McAuliffe said in a statement with the veto. “Businesses and job creators do not want to locate or do business in states that appear more concerned with demonizing people than with creating a strong business climate.”

CEOs employ gay people and don’t look favorably on such legislation, he said.

American Airlines, Apple, Dow Chemical, PayPal, Bank of America, Yahoo and Facebook are among companies critical of North Carolina’s new law.

LGBT rights group Equality Virginia said the bill was one of nine this year “targeting gay and transgender individuals, signifying an unprecedented amount of LGBT-centric legislation filed in one legislative session.”

In the House, three Virginia Beach Republicans – Dels. Glenn Davis, Chris Stolle and Ron Villanueva – joined Democrats in voting “no.” Also voting “no”: Dels. Steve Heretick, D-Portsmouth; Daun Hester, D-Norfolk; Matthew James, D-Portsmouth; and Joe Lindsey, D-Norfolk. Del. Lionell Spruill, D-Chesapeake, did not vote.

What such bills are really all about is the Christofascists' sick desire to punish those who no longer accept their toxic religious beliefs and who refuse to live their lives ruled by hate and fear.  In addition, as modern science and knowledge increasingly demonstrate that the Bible is wrong on many fronts, the "godly folk" cannot tolerate anything that jeopardizes their house of cards religious belief constructs or which - God forbid - might require them to think and ignore the rants of parasitic clergy in pulpits.  The more the Christofascists' world view is challenged, the better off the nation will be. 

Wednesday Morning Male Beauty

Stands on Social Issues Causing Civil War in GOP

As a former Republican, in my view it is far past time when the business community base of the Republican Party needed to stand up to the knuckle dragging elements of the party base best embodied by Christofascists - many of whom are also white supremacists - who want to drag the nation back to the worse aspects of the 1950's and in the process make right wing Christianity the de facto national religion.  With the ongoing fights over deceptively named "religious liberty" bills at the state level, the business faction of the GOP has finally realized that pandering to the prejudices of the Christofascists is bad for business - just ask the High Point Furniture Market which is seeing massive cancellations thanks to the North Carolina GOP.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the growing civil war between the business wing of the GOP and the religious extremists of the Christofascist elements of the party base.  Here are excerpts:

The ideological rifts breaking apart the Republican Party have moved into the states, where business leaders and evangelicals who have long coexisted in the GOP are suddenly at war over social issues such as gay rights and religious freedom.

The escalating feud has been evident in recent days in Georgia and North Carolina, where Republican governors have taken opposite approaches to dealing with these two vocal constituencies.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, facing pressure from corporate heavyweights such as Delta Air Lines and Disney, vetoed a bill that would have allowed pastors and faith-based groups to deny services to same-sex couples. The decision by Deal, who is not running for reelection, has drawn fire from leading evangelical activists, who have accused him of being a traitor to their cause.

The legislative battles, which have played out in state capitals across the country, underscore the unusual level of disarray in a party that traditionally strives for order. Rather than unifying around a message and strategy to win back the White House and retain congressional majorities, the GOP is largely collapsing amid factional warfare. There is seemingly no issue where Republicans agree — with bitter disputes raging over trade, foreign policy, entitlements and social issues.

Trump’s rise has muddied the ideological waters for the camps that have long made up the bulk of the GOP coalition — the three-legged stool built by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s consisting of fiscal conservatives, national security hawks and social conservatives. He has railed against free-trade deals backed by big business and blasted an interventionist foreign policy embraced by GOP hawks.

But the state-level battles between businesses and evangelicals demonstrate that the Republican Party’s troubles go beyond the concerns over Trump — pointing to a potentially irreconcilable divide between core elements of the GOP base.

Each side remains influential. Evangelical leaders can mobilize large numbers of activists and voters in key states and congressional districts. Corporations, meanwhile, operating in a post-Citizens United world of unlimited political spending, have the ability to put enormous pressure on policymakers.

“You are talking about two portions of the Republican Party who don’t fundamentally understand one another. . . . . The anger among evangelicals was especially raw this week after Deal’s veto.  “The devil has gone down to Georgia again, but this time it was in the form of big business and cowardly politicians,” said Tony Perkins, president of the evangelical Family Research Council.

Evangelical activists began pushing measures they describe as promoting “religious liberty” — aimed at protecting people such as wedding cake bakers or photographers who object to same-sex marriage from being legally compelled to participate in ceremonies. But these protections are often written broadly, with critics arguing they allow discrimination against the LGBT community in other ways, such as in employment and providing charitable services.

The focus on gay marriage ran counter to recommendations in a post-2012 election autopsy report published by the Republican National Committee. The report urged the party to move away from social issues as a way to expand the GOP’s reach beyond core conservatives.

Many Republican elites, including executives at big companies, feel like gay marriage is settled law and do not think special measures are needed to protect religious conservatives.

“Generally, in the past, big business wanted to keep out of social issues,” said David Boaz, a longtime leader at the libertarian Cato Institute. “The corporate world has moved more to the cultural left. The religious right is feeling more and more embattled, isolated, and that makes them even angrier about things like this veto in Georgia.”

The [2016 gubernatorial] campaign in North Carolina could hinge on how evangelicals and business leaders respond.  The state’s attorney general, Roy Cooper, a Democrat vying to unseat McCrory, on Tuesday called the law a “national embarrassment” and said he would not defend it in court.

The feuding will likely unfold in additional states over the coming weeks and months. . . . Gregg Keller, the Missouri-based GOP operative who was tasked with outreach to conservative activists on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s presidential campaign last year, said the business wing should recognize that religious conservatives will not go away.

“One of the largest cultural imperatives that helped lead to the rise of Christianity was the view of the sexually licentious nature of the Roman Empire,” he said. “This is not a bug of evangelical Christianity; this is a feature. This is a hill on which evangelical Christians are going to be willing to die.”  He added: “The business community has caught the bull by the horns on this one.”

What is laughable about the Christofascists complaints about "sexual licentiousness" is that it is they themselves (especially in the Bible Belt) who have the highest divorce rates, the highest Internet porn usage, the most teen pregnancies and a seemingly endless string of sex scandals.  They want to police everyone else's sex life, yet their own are lives are veritable soap operas with white trash characters.

Reminder: John Kasich Is Also Evil

Given the insanity and freak show nature of the Republican presidential nomination contest, it is easy to be lulled into believing that Ohio Governor John Kasich might be somewhat acceptable as the GOP nominee or as president.  Unfortunately, that view overlooks the reality of Kasich's record and that, among other things, he is anti-gay and anti-woman when not engaging in union busting and diverting funding from public education.  Only  the extremism of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz make Kasich seem sane and moderate in comparison.  Gawker has a timely piece that reminds us that Kasich is just as scary  as his opponents, just in a less flamboyant way.  Here are article highlights:

With Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio out of the running, Ohio Governor John Kasich is the establishment candidate no one saw coming. And sure, compared to the rest of the GOP’s increasingly terrifying sideshows in suits, Kasich comes across as sane. But don’t be fooled: John Kasich is just as much of a monster as the rest—he just hides it better.

In March of 2009, Kasich infamously (at least in Ohio) noted that the state needed to “break the back of organized labor in schools.” Which is to say, John Kasich would like to break the back of the teachers unions. The same teachers unions that have, according to him, “smeared my record and distorted it.” It’s not just teachers Kasich wants to bust; it’s organized labor in general. From The Columbus Dispatch:

Kasich, who is backed by business groups, also opposes paying prevailing wages on state-funded construction projects. And as part of a sweeping review of state laws and regulations, he wants to reexamine the 1983 law that gave public employees in Ohio the right to collective bargaining, arbitration and strike (except for safety forces).

John Kasich loves to talk about how he brought jobs back to Ohio after the recession. The problem with that line of thinking, though, is that every state regained jobs after the recession. In fact, most states even managed return to pre-recession employment rates. Ohio was not one of those states.

According to Cleveland.com, by May of 2014, Ohio actually had 119,900 fewer jobs than when the recession began. As for the jobs Kasich did create, the majority were low-wage. According to a 2014 report by a progressive Cleveland think tank, Ohio’s median wage was nearly a dollar below the national average at $15.81 per hour.

Kasich is big on charter schools, which in his case meant spending over $1 billion on a program that exists to divert public funding to private pockets. According to progressive advocacy group Innovation Ohio:

·        Traditional public schools, which educate 90 percent of Ohio’s kids, receive $515 million less state funding than before Gov. Kasich took office.
·        Charter school funding has increased by 27 percent, and charters now receive more state money per pupil than do traditional public schools.

What’s more, The Akron Beacon Journal reported that “state auditors have uncovered $27.3 million improperly spent by charter schools, many run by for-profit companies, enrolling thousands of children and producing academic results that rival the worst in the nation.”

It’s incredibly fortunate for John Kasich that Ted Cruz is Ted Cruz. Because if he weren’t standing next to an opponent so phenomenally, nauseatingly unlikeable, we all might realize that Kasich himself is also a dick.

Back in 2014, John Kasich was asked about his decision to sign into law a provision prohibiting rape crisis counselors from referring rape victims to abortion services. In other words, John Kasich imposed a rape crisis counselor gag rule. Instead of answering a perfectly reasonable question about an incredibly pernicious law, Kasich just... ignored it. . . . . Dangerously backwards women’s health laws aren’t just for the South anymore. In fact, Ohio has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, mostly thanks to John Kasich.

In just five years, Kasich manged to pass 11 different laws restricting abortion rights for women. Mother Jones points out that “since 2011, half of Ohio’s 16 clinics have closed, and according to The Columbus Dispatch three of the remaining eight are in risk of closing if they cannot find a hospital within 30 miles willing to enter a transfer agreement.”

As Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, told Mother Jones, “He is, if not the worst, among the worst of anti-choice governors in this country’s history.” There’s your reasonable, moderate Republican, everyone!

Is Corporate America Finally Ready to Turn Its Back on Christian Extremists?

With the veto of Georgia's falsely named religious liberty bill by GOP Governor Nathan Deal, some are conjecturing that corporate America has finally decided that it is time to turn its back on ignorance embracing, anti-modernity far right Christians.  The fact that North Carolina Republicans chose to ram through that state's anti-LGBT in a single day so as to close the door to corporate reaction before the bill's passage was a fait accompli in someways further the argument.  Simply put, business thrives the most when the best and brightest can be recruited and made to feel welcome and at home, yet this is the antithesis of the hate and bigotry based Christofascist agenda.  A column in the Washington Post looks at big business' overdue wake up call.  Here are excerpts:

On Monday, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, a conservative Republican, said he would veto a bill that would have legalized discrimination against gay people, responding to an outcry from corporate interests including Coca-Cola, Home Depot, UPS, Walt Disney, Delta, Time Warner, Comcast, Netflix, Apple and the National Football League. As state legislators pushed the “religious liberty” bill through, Deal told them: “I hope that we can all just take a deep breath, recognize that the world is changing around us.”

Headlines of the past week show seemingly contradictory developments: Even as Georgia’s governor took a bold stand against discrimination, North Carolina’s Republican governor last Wednesday signed into law similar legislation enshrining discrimination again lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender residents.

But there is really no contradiction: Georgia’s governor vetoed the bill because it received massive public exposure and there was a resulting outcry from corporations concerned that it would offend customers and workers. North Carolina’s governor signed the bill literally in the dark of night, just before the Easter holiday weekend, after legislators introduced and passed it in a single day at a hastily convened special session — essentially slipping it into law before it could get attention and business interests could state their objections.

In both cases, you can see the effects of a new corporate citizenship that is emerging. Corporate America is traditionally conservative, reluctant to react to social controversy and divisive issues. But as public sentiment shifts dramatically on gay rights and as pro-equality millennials become a large bloc of consumers, business is shedding its reticence. This has happened, to a lesser extent, on immigration, various environmental issues and, recently, in support of Apple’s stand for consumer privacy.

Democrats and progressives see potential for a larger shift nationally in corporate political behavior, as Republicans take ideological stands on education, the Export-Import Bank, the debt ceiling and infrastructure spending that put them at odds with their traditional corporate allies. 

Though it’s not clear whether that broader shift to the left will occur among corporations, there is no doubt that a dramatic change has occurred on gay rights. When the Georgia legislature took up legislation giving religious groups the right to deny services to gay people, corporations by the dozen voiced their objections. Disney and Netflix said they would stop filming in Georgia, and the NFL said the bill would jeopardize Atlanta’s hopes of hosting the Super Bowl.

On Monday, he [Governor Deal] said the religious community’s request for government protection is “ironic,” because if “indeed our religious liberty is conferred by God and not by man-made government, we should heed the ‘hands-off’ admonition of the First Amendment.”

In North Carolina, Pat McCrory and state Republicans tried to avoid the trouble Deal faced, and the similar trouble Indiana Gov. Mike Pence faced in 2014. . . . [Yet] American Airlines, Apple, Dow Chemical, PayPal and others rushed to criticize the new law. The National Basketball Association suggested it might move its 2017 All-Star Game from Charlotte.

On Tuesday, more than 80 top executives from blue-chip companies signed a letter to McCrory saying the legislation is “bad for our employees and bad for business” and will “make it far more challenging for businesses across the state to recruit” and will “diminish the state’s draw as a destination for tourism, new businesses and economic activity.” 

McCrory, unlike the term-limited Deal, is up for reelection and likely hopes the issue will rally his conservative supporters.  Now North Carolina will face the economic consequences of his poor choice. McCrory should have done what Georgia’s Deal proposed: take a deep breath, and recognize that the world is changing.

 

More Tuesday Male Beauty

Saudi Arabia Seeks Death Penalty for" Coming Out"

Saudi executions

As heinous as North Carolina's new anti-LGBT law is, it pales in comparison to the utterly vile efforts going on in putative American ally, Saudi Arabia, a consistent violator of human rights.  North Carolina Republicans seek to strip LGBT citizens of their civil rights.  In Saudi Arabia, the royal family and their sycophants want to deprive LGBT individuals of their very lies if they admit reality and "come out."  It goes without saying that, in my view, if anyone deserves execution, it is the Saudi royals and the Islamic fundamentalist clerics that they help fund.  The Washington Blade looks at this disturbing situation which is yet further proof that America needs to seriously rethink its support for such a foul regime and the religious extremists that it nurtures.  Here are highlights:

A published report indicates that people who come out online in Saudi Arabia could face the death penalty.

Oraz, a Saudi newspaper, reported on Saturday that prosecutors in the city of Jiddah have proposed the penalty in response to dozens of cases they have prosecuted over the last six months. These include 35 people who received prison sentences for sodomy.

Okaz reported that Jiddah authorities have prosecuted 50 cases in which men allegedly dressed as women. A doctor who lives in the port city on the Red Sea has been released on bail after officials arrested him for allegedly raising an LGBT Pride flag over his home.

A gay Saudi man who lives outside the kingdom told the Washington Blade on Monday during a telephone interview the enhanced penalties that Jiddah prosecutors have proposed would apply to the entire country. The man, who operates a Twitter account that publishes LGBT-specific news and other information from Saudi Arabia, said the proposal has caused fear among LGBT people in the country.

Social media users in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have begun to use the hashtag “You will not terrorize me. I’m gay” on Twitter to express their opposition to the proposed penalty.

Saudi Arabia is among the countries in which consensual same-sex sexual activity remains punishable by death.

 The source, who asked the Blade not to publish their name because of safety concerns, said reports that Jiddah authorities are seeking the death penalty against those who come out online highlights “the horrific reality of the situation” in the country.

“We can’t do a thing about it, but try to make some noise so activists from other countries would hear about it and talk to their politicians to pressure Saudi to change its policies,” said the source. “The Internet is the only safe haven to LGBT individuals in the Middle East. If this is taken from us, we won’t have anywhere else to go.”

Write you Senator and Congressman and tell them you want America's relationship with Saudi Arabia re-evaluated and American aid to cease.  

Daily Press Slams Randy Forbes; Forbes to Disingenuously Rent Apartment in Virginia Beach

4th District Congressman Randy Forbes who seeks to be a carpetbagger in Virginia Beach

My former law school classmate Randy Forbes continues to show the extent to which some elected officials will go to put their personal interests ahead the interests and well being of their constituents. Two stories looks at Forbes' self-centered agenda.  First, WAVY- looks at Forbes' plan to rent an apartment  in Virginia Beach in lieu of purchasing a home in the 2nd Congressional District (can we say cheap?) so that he can claim with at least a somewhat straight face that he lives in the District even though 100% of his past ties are in Chesapeake/.the 4th District.   The second piece is an editorial from the Daily Press which basically rips Forbes a new one.  Here are highlights from the WAVY TV piece:

10 On Your Side has confirmed Congressman Randy Forbes (R) 4th District is now in the process of renting an apartment in Virginia Beach.

His Campaign office told WAVY Forbes and his wife “have put down a security deposit and look forward to spending a great deal of time there.”

Forbes’ Communiction Director Hailey Sadler did not say where the apartment is.  Three sources confirm Forbes is getting an apartment at the Mayflower Apartments on 34th Street. Mayflower would neither confirm nor deny the Forbes application to rent an apartment.

Hailey Sadler also says, “Randy and Shirley intend to retain their generational home nine miles outside of Virginia Beach.”

That house is located in Chesapeake in Forbes current district.

Congressman Forbes is switching districts from the 4th where he lives in his Chesapeake home to the 2nd which represents mostly Virginia Beach.

He is running against Delegate Scott Taylor/(R) 85th. Taylor responded to our story “His first political plan of abandoning his people for a better district while living in Chesapeake has failed. Now he wants to try to deceive everyone by renting an apartment? Everyone knows Randy Forbes lives in a big house in Chesapeake, not a small apartment in Virginia Beach.”

It is unsure whether Forbes can and will move his voting precinct to Virginia Beach.

Del. Taylor has repeatedly said, “How can you vote for Randy Forbes who can’t even vote for himself?”

While I generally shun Republicans, it should be noted that Forbes's opponent for the GOP nomination, Del. Scott Taylor, is one of the few Republicans in the Virginia General Assembly who is NOT a homophobe.  Meanwhile. an editorial in the Daily Press slammed Forbes for his shameless opportunism and desire to stay in offence at the cost of the best interests of his constituents.  Here are excerpts:

Instead of a district that resembles a squashed salamander and purports to say bits and pieces of Newport News, Norfolk and Richmond connected by strips of mud along the James River shore make up a community, we will get something different from redistricting.

It's a basic question when lawyers look into something: Who gains?

Lawyers, being lawyers, have to ask it in Latin — they say "Cui bono" — but the point can't be obscured by a dead language. And the point was clear as Fourth grade English when the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about the court-ordered redrawing of the 3rd Congressional District last week.

Who benefits if the Supreme Court eventually throws out the redistricting?

Members of Congress. The one name that kept coming up in last week's arguments before the Supreme Court was Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Chesapeake.

The lawyer for the Virginia members of Congress who challenged the lower court's redistricting argued several times that redrawing the map injured Rep. Forbes.

"Every time your district is changed and you believe it hurts you, you have a right to go to court and say what?" Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked at one point.

"He suffered injury-in-fact to what?" asked Justice Anthony Kennedy, referring to Rep. Forbes.

"To his ability to be re-elected," the delegation's lawyer said.  Huh?

So members of Congress are special. Their rights to that $174,000-a-year gig, and to districts carefully crafted to ensure re-election, are different than yours. Your right, that is, to a vote that matters to our Capitol Hill solons, most of whom romped home to re-election in 2014 with a 20-percentage-point margin from their carefully gerrymandered districts.

Here's the dirty little secret about congressional redistricting in Virginia: The General Assembly enacts it, but it does so with the wishes of members of Congress uppermost in its mind.

And now there's this: Risking an election loss is an injury — an injury! — to our professional politicians.  Nonsense.

The real injury lies in an environment where politicians don't risk losing elections.  The injured parties here are Virginia voters. We're injured when elected officials no longer have to listen to us because they are so secure in their seats.

Ouch!  But the truth is that the editorial is 100% on point.  Forbes has no right to be assured of re-election.  For years he has had a handcrafted safe seat which has allowed him to be re-elected while doing little or nothing for his constituents and pandering to the most lunatic fringes of the Christofascists in the GOP base.  It is far past time that Forbes be forced to participate in a competitive nomination and election process.  If the voters don't want the theocratic crap that he is peddling, then he deserves to be defeated and forced from office.