Usually when you think of religious anti-gay bigots, the image of an older person, say someone in their 60’s, 70’s or 80’s, comes to mind. Think, the late Jerry Falwell or octogenarian Pat Robertson, or even Maggie Gallagher, who’s 52. And given that America’s Catholics today support same-sex marriage at a higher rate than the rest of America — the majority of America, about 55 percent, already support marriage equality — you wouldn’t necessarily expect a 44-year old east coast Catholic to be as a big an anti-gay bigot as Ken Cuccinelli is. And you’d be wrong.
Ken Cuccinelli, who is running for governor of Virginia against Democrat Terry McAuliffe, on Saturday morning told voters that he is standing his ground when it comes to homosexuality and same-sex marriage. And that ground in the recent past has included comments that gay people have no souls, are self-destructive, and that “homosexual acts” are “intrinsically wrong.”
The radical right-wing Republican attorney general of Virginia was asked Saturday morning by PBS’ Judy Woodruff at the Virginia Bar Association gubernatorial debate if he still believes “same-sex acts are against nature and are harmful to society,” as he said a few years ago.
Cuccinelli’s response was straightforward:
“My personal beliefs about the personal challenge of homosexuality haven’t changed.”
But the married 44-year old Roman Catholic and father of seven didn’t expand on what “the personal challenge of homosexuality” actually is, leaving many, at least on Twitter, to wonder — and leaving Cuccinelli the laughing stock of the week.
Cuccinelli is so anti-gay that among his first acts upon taking office in 2010 was — literally unprovoked and out of nowhere — writing the University of Virginia Board of Governors to tell them that they did not have the constitutional authority to protect LGBT people from discrimination.
LOOK:Â In Virginia (Yes, Virginia) The Majority Of Voters Now Support Same-Sex Marriage
In the past, as a state senator running for AG in 2009, Cuccinelli said:
“My view is that homosexual acts, not homosexuality, but homosexual acts are wrong. They’re intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that. … They don’t comport with natural law. I happen to think that it represents (to put it politely; I need my thesaurus to be polite) behavior that is not healthy to an individual and in aggregate is not healthy to society.â€
And in 2008 Cuccinelli, told the Virginia Family Foundation that when “you look at the homosexual agenda, I cannot support something that I believe brings nothing but self-destruction, not only physically but of their soul.”
Watch (apologies — audio very low):
//www.youtube.com/embed/BnJ-c7MU7_Q
[View the story “”The personal challenge of homosexuality”” on Storify]
Hat tip: Blue Virginia, Think Progress
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