Virgina AG Ken Cuccinelli Target Of Protests For Anti-Gay Policy
Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s new Attorney General, directed all state schools and colleges to remove any existing sexual orientation references from their non-discrimination policies. Now he is facing major backlash from the campus populations, LGBTQ activists, and even conservative politicians.
In a memo last week, Cuccinelli wrote,
“It is my advice that the law and public policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibit a college or university from including ‘sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender expression,’ or like classification as a protected class within its non-discrimination policy absent specific authorization from the General Assembly.”
The Washington Post called Cuccinelli’s move “his most aggressive initiative on conservative social issues since taking office in January,” adding,
“What he’s saying is reprehensible,” said Vincent F. Callahan Jr., a former Republican member of the House of Delegates who serves on George Mason’s board of visitors. “I don’t know what he’s doing, opening up this can of worms.”
“It is not entirely clear what recourse Cuccinelli would have if the universities do not follow his advice. Claire Guthrie Gastañaga, general counsel to the gay rights group Equality Virginia and a former deputy attorney general, urged boards to seek a second opinion. “They call it advice for a reason,” she said.
“Former attorney general Jerry Kilgore (R) agreed it would be difficult for Cuccinelli to enforce his opinion without pursuing court action. But he said college visitors swear an oath to abide by state statute.”
“U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said in a statement that Cuccinelli’s advice would “damage the Commonwealth’s reputation for academic excellence and diversity.”
On its College, Inc. blog, The Post also reports,
“The University of Virginia group Queer & Allied Activism has launched a social media campaign, urging students to protest on Cuccinelli’s Facebook and Twitter pages, and to sign a petition organized by the group Equality Virginia.
“Some students contend Cuccinelli released the letter late last week on purpose, because it caught many students leaving for break.
“I’ve never gotten so many e-mails from students wanting to do something,” said Brandon Carroll, 21, student government president at Virginia Tech. In his view, any erosion in gay rights at state universities is “going to make us lose top students. It’s going to make us lose top faculty.”
In, “Virginia Is For Haters,” civil rights activist, author, and former Clinton White House senior advisor David Mixner calls the actions by both Cuccinelli and his boss, Governor Bob McDonnell “hostile and bigoted,” a “campaign of hate,” and urges action:
“If the new generation of activists created by Proposition 8 ever needed a target, this is it.”
Mixner has offered an eleven-point action plan, and this warning:
“If we allow them to proceed without disruption, paying no price for such actions and continuing with business as usual, then we can expect others to follow in their footsteps and we should get ready to find enjoyment in being second class citizens.”
Students themselves have taken to protesting on a large scale.
A University of Virginia student group, “Queer & Allied Activism,” wrote a letter to both Governor McDonnell and AG Cuccinelli, stating,
“This move sets the tone for the state and universities and sends the message that LGBTQ individuals are not welcome in Virginia. This is a clear flip flop on his campaign promise not to promote a social agenda,” and wisely adding, “based on our own research of the top 50 schools ranked by US News & World Reports, 49 of 50 schools have non-discrimination protections for sexual orientation, and 38 have protections for gender identity.”
In conjunction with their social media campaign, they have also created a Facebook page, “WE DON’T WANT DISCRIMINATION IN OUR STATE UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES!” which currently has over 4500 fans and is growing rapidly.
The ACLU of Virginia is getting involved too. Via their website:
“The ACLU of Virginia is sending letters to all public university presidents warning them against taking any action that would permit discrimination against gay and lesbian employees or students. According to the ACLU, gays and lesbians are protected against governmental discrimination by the U.S. Constitution.
“The letter, from ACLU of Virginia Legal Director Rebecca K. Glenberg, is intended to counteract a March 4 letter from Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli informing state universities that their non-discrimination policies as applied to gays and lesbians are not authorized by state law and must be rescinded.
“Cuccinelli’s letter is an affront to anyone who stands for the principle of equal protection under the law,†said ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Kent Willis. “Regardless of state law or policy, not only should universities prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but they are required to do so under the U.S. Constitution.â€
“If Ken Cuccinelli is trying to say that the U.S. Constitution doesn’t apply in Virginia,†added Willis, “his first significant act as Attorney General is a giant step backwards and a huge embarrassment for the state.â€
Let me add this. Elections matter. The time to get involved is now. As I wrote in “Eight Months From Today, The America We Know Will Be Gone,”
“Governors sign — or veto — same sex marriage legislation. Governors and mayors include — or exclude — the LGBTQ workforce from their anti-discrimination policies. (Thank you again, newly sworn-in Virgina Governor Bob McDonnell, for removing protections for LGBTQ state workers, even though you campaigned on an agenda that you claimed wasn’t about social issues, but financial ones.)
“Why does this matter? Because there still are Republicans who would like to not only ensure DOMA doesn’t get repealed, but that there’s a federal marriage amendment written into the constitution that clearly defines marriage as between one man and one woman. Think that’s impossible today? Not when support for same-sex marriage in some polls is slightly declining, and not when the last time the Federal Marriage Amendment was voted on was less than four years ago. (And not when just two weeks ago, Senator Mike Pence called for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage!)”
Lastly, let me also say this: The LGBTQ community has it tough as it is. We are second-class citizens, without the same rights that our heterosexual counterparts have and often take for granted. Like the right to marry. Like, the right to serve honestly in the armed forces. Like the right to adopt children as a couple. And so many others.
But when members of our own community actively campaign for people like Bob McDonnell, this is the end result. The Log Cabin Republicans of Virginia knew there was an issue with McDonnell when, during the campaign, the Washington Post found an old college thesis of McDonnell’s that was, to quote the Log Cabin Republicans themselves, “frightening.”
In the Log Cabin Republicans’ September, 2009 newsletter, here’s what they had to say:
“In response to the widely quoted, 20-year-old college thesis that the Washington Post recently unearthed, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell has expressed his strongest support to date for the principle of nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation by the government. The dissertation expressed some frightening views for those who believe in limited government, individual rights, and equality under the law. McDonnell says his views on these issues have changed and that he now believes that “government should not punish or discriminate based on anyone’s sexual orientation.â€Â Much of his voting record in the House, however, is at odds with this admirable statement, so Mr. McDonnell appears to be a work in progress on glbt issues.”
Get that? A “work in progress.” Well, folks, this “work in progress” walked in the door, was sworn in, and then actively went out of his way to remove long-term anti-discrimination protections from Virginia’s LGBTQ community. And then, his homphobic Attorney General followed suit even more strongly.
The Log Cabin Republicans of Virginia did speak out aggressively against Cuccinelli, but also did support McDonnell. It only takes a nod from the top to give all the others the support they need to do each others’ bidding.
Is anyone surprised?
I’m not. Nor is DailyPress.com’s Carol Capó, who, in, “As Cuccinelli shows his stripes, what was Virginia thinking?,” writes,
“The new attorney general’s fast out of the blocks with controversial moves in his first months on the job. Controversial, but not surprising. In his campaign, he made no bones about his ideas and ideals. Now we’ll see how they work out as state policy.
“Actually, the idea of an attorney general making policy is alarming. When the governor and General Assembly do it, there are checks and balances.
“But when the attorney general starts in, where’s the check? When he comes out of the far reaches of the ideological spectrum, as Cuccinelli does, there’s no balance. Only some far-off accountability, at the next election. But attorneys general rarely run for re-election. Usually, they’re using the office to polish up their résumé for the job they really want: governor.
“To this one, Virginia, pay attention.”
Virginia, and every other state as well.
Ironically, on Cuccinelli’s own website, in a letter thanking voters, he writes,
“In addition to standing guard over your individual rights during my tenure, you can count on me to stand guard against constitutional overreaching by the federal government, but only thanks to your support and your efforts.”
So, let’s get to work!”
I suppose one could add, “Unless you’re LGBTQ.”
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A federal judge in Texas known for a ruling that attempted to ban a widely-used abortion drug is citing an extremist anti-LGBTQ group in his ruling allowing a ban on drag shows to stay in place.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a former attorney for an anti-LGBTQ conservative Christian legal organization, and a member of the Federalist Society, in his 26-page ruling dated Thursday cited the “About” page of Gays Against Groomers to claim, “it’s unclear how drag shows unmistakably communicate advocacy for LGBT rights.”
Judge Kacsmaryk, appointed by Donald Trump twice before finally assuming office in 2019, suggests the First Amendment does not provide for freedom of expression for drag shows, calls drag “sexualized conduct,” and says it is “more regulable” because “children are in the audience.”
Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern adds, “Kacsmaryk’s conclusion that drag is probably NOT protected by the First Amendment conflicts with decisions from Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and Montana which held that drag is constitutionally protected expression. It also bristles with undisguised hostility toward LGBTQ people.”
Calling the judge “a proud Christian nationalist who flatly refuses to apply binding Supreme Court precedent when it conflicts with his extremist far-right beliefs,” Stern at Slate writes that Kacsmaryk ruled drag “may be outlawed to protect ‘the sexual exploitation and abuse of children.’ In short, he concluded that drag fails to convey a message, while explaining all the reasons why he’s offended by the message it conveys.”
Stern does not let Kacsmaryk off the hook there.
“From almost any other judge, the ruling in Spectrum WT v. Wendler would be a shocking rejection of basic free speech principles; from Kacsmaryk, it’s par for the course. This is, after all, the judge who sought to ban medication abortion nationwide, restricted minors’ access to birth control, seize control over border policy to exclude asylum-seekers, and flouted recent precedent protecting LGBTQ+ equality,” Stern says.
“He is also poised to bankrupt Planned Parenthood by compelling them to pay a $1.8 billion penalty on truly ludicrous grounds. And he is not the only Trump-appointed judge substituting his reactionary beliefs for legal analysis. We have reached a point where these lawless decisions are not only predictable but inevitable, and they show no sign of stopping: Their authors are still just settling into a decadeslong service in the federal judiciary.”
West Texas A&M University President Walter V. Wendler penned the letter that sparked the lawsuit.
Titled, “A Harmless Drag Show? No Such Thing,” Wendler wrote: “I believe every human being is created in the image of God and, therefore, a person of dignity. Being created in God’s image is the basis of Natural Law. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, prisoners of the culture of their time as are we, declared the Creator’s origin as the foundational fiber in the fabric of our nation as they breathed life into it. Does a drag show preserve a single thread of human dignity? I think not.”
Journalist Chris Geidner concludes, “It’s an extremely biased ruling by a judge who has established that he does not care about being overturned — even by the most conservative appeals court in the nation.”
U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL). largely seen as pushing Speaker Kevin McCarthy‘s Republican-majority House of Representatives toward shutting down the federal government, is praising and promoting remarks made by a freshman GOP lawmaker that appear to suggest the use of violence. U.S. Rep. Eli Crane‘s comments, posted Friday (below), call for change “through force,” remarks echoing Congressman Gaetz’s recent comments which were denounced by an expert on authoritarianism as fascistic.
“The only way we’re going to see meaningful change in this town is through force,” wrote Congressman Crane, Republican of Arizona atop a three-minute video in which he frames what is now an almost guaranteed government shutdown as a “spending fight.” In his video he says, “the only way you’re gonna get any change in this town is through force.” Gaetz in August had said, “we know that only through force do we make any change in a corrupt town like Washington, D.C.”
Congressman Crane is a former Navy SEAL. He has promoted the false “Big Lie” conspiracy theory that there was massive fraud in the election President Joe Biden won, and called “on the state legislature to decertify the 2020 election.” He is one of six House Republicans who voted against McCarthy’s speakership all 15 times in January.
“Congressman Eli Crane is a fountainhead of political courage,” said Rep. Gaetz Friday afternoon. “He holds the line.”
Crane recently came under fire for calling Black people “colored,” during debate on his legislation that would force the U.S. Armed Forces to not use any diversity requirements in its hiring practices.
Just days before he won his House seat last year, The Washington Post reported Crane had urged an “audience to look up an antisemitic sermon at a recent campaign stop.”
“Crane said that he was motivated to run because of ‘radical ideologies that are destroying this country’ and that he was most concerned about ‘Cultural Marxism,’ which the Southern Poverty Law Center has described as an antisemitic baseless claim gaining traction on the American right.”
“He encouraged the audience to watch a speech by a right-wing pastor who blamed cultural change on a group of German Jewish philosophers and condemned Barack Obama for having a ‘homosexual agenda.'”
“If we don’t wake up,” Crane said, according to the Post, “if we don’t study what they’re doing, and if we don’t put people in influential positions that understand what this war is all about, what they’re trying to do and have and have the courage to call it out, we’re going to lose this country.”
In August, while standing next to Donald Trump at a campaign rally, Congressman Gaetz said, “Mr. President, I cannot stand these people that are destroying our country. They are opening our borders. They are weaponizing our federal law enforcement against patriotic Americans who love this nation as we should.”
“But we know that only through force do we make any change in a corrupt town like Washington, D.C. And so to all my friends here in Iowa, when you see them come for this man, know that they are coming for our movement and they are coming for all of us.”
At the time, Raw Story reported, “historian and author Ruth Ben-Ghiat called Gaetz comments alarming.”
READ MORE: Pete Buttigieg Just Testified Before Congress. It Did Not Go Well for Republicans.
“What he is saying is that they are not going to have change through elections or through legislation or through reform. They are going to have change through violence,” she warned.
“And that’s how fascists talk,” Ben-Ghiat added. “So, even if Trump is out of the picture, these are people who have adopted methods very familiar to me as a historian of fascism, that violence and corruption and lying that’s what the party is today.”
Image via Shutterstock
COMMENTARY
‘See How Easy That Is to Say?’: GOP Mocked for ‘Weaponization’ of DOJ Claims as Democratic Senator Gets Indicted
The U.S. Dept. of Justice unsealed an indictment against U.S. Senator Bob Menendez late Friday morning, accusing the New Jersey Democratic lawmaker of bribery as prosecutors showed photos of gold bars and nearly half-a-million dollars in cash stuffed into a jacket that bears his name and the seal of the U.S. Senate.
Many on the left immediately demanded Senator Menendez resign, a demand he is refusing. He will step down as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, which Senate Democrats require when a chair is criminally charged.
It took little time for liberals to mock Republicans who have been claiming President Joe Biden and Democrats in general, along with the “deep state,” have “weaponized” the Dept. of Justice against conservatives, especially after Donald Trump’s four indictments on a total of 91 criminal felonies.
“Let me get this straight,” wrote journalist and progressive SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah. “To the GOP, when DOJ indicts President Biden’s son and a senior Democratic US Senator that is great. But when DOJ indicts Donald Trump for attempting a coup and for 32 counts of Espionage that is DOJ’s ‘weaponization’ of criminal justice?!”
READ MORE: Pete Buttigieg Just Testified Before Congress. It Did Not Go Well for Republicans.
“This is the second time that Sen. Bob Menendez has been indicted for corruption. He needs to resign and allow Gov. Murphy to fill that vacancy with someone who does right by the people of New Jersey,” wrote former Human Rights Campaign press secretary Charlotte Clymer. “See how easy that is to say, GOP?”
Journalist, author, and former Clinton White House aide Keith Boykin posted video of the prosecutor announcing the indictment.
US Attorney Damian Williams shows photos of the Mercedes Benz, gold bars, and cash the government alleges Senator Robert Menendez received in bribes. pic.twitter.com/h4hYYwzKVQ
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) September 22, 2023
Boykin later sarcastically commented, “There goes Biden again weaponizing the Justice Department to prosecute political leaders in his own party.”
“President Joe Biden’s weaponized Department of Justice has now indicted Democratic Senator Bob Menendez and *checks notes* Joe Biden’s son,” observed veteran intelligence officer, activist, and social media personality Travis Akers.
Attorney and former Republican George Conway quickly responded, saying, “senile sleepy Joe is playing 65-dimensional chess again.”
“Menendez should resign. Today,” demanded historian and author Kevin M. Kruse.
“One of the nice things about rule of law is that truly believing in it ensures that you don’t end up as a partisan hypocrite,” observed The Atlantic’s Brian Klaas, an associate professor in global politics at University College London. “If Menendez is guilty, he should go to prison as anyone else would. (And it would be prudent to resign swiftly).”
Meanwhile, some used Friday’s indictment of Sen. Menendez to focus on other political figures.
Foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst and commentator David Rothkopf, warned, “The Memendez case should have Jared [Kushner] and Clarence [Thomas] ordering extra strength Tums today.”
Rachel Bitecofer, the political strategist and analyst also appeared to point the finger at Justice Thomas and his wife, Ginni.
You know who else hid money from the IRS and ran his bribes through his wife?! pic.twitter.com/kWJuAPCtbJ
— Rachel Bitecofer 📈🔭🇺🇲🇺🇦 (@RachelBitecofer) September 22, 2023
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‘See How Easy That Is to Say?’: GOP Mocked for ‘Weaponization’ of DOJ Claims as Democratic Senator Gets Indicted
Gaetz Praises GOP Congressman Who Echoes His Call for Change ‘Through Force’
‘Vulgar and Lewd’: Trump Judge Cites Extremist Group to Allow Drag Show Ban
‘Vulgar and Lewd’: Trump Judge Cites Extremist Group to Allow Drag Show Ban
Gaetz Praises GOP Congressman Who Echoes His Call for Change ‘Through Force’
‘See How Easy That Is to Say?’: GOP Mocked for ‘Weaponization’ of DOJ Claims as Democratic Senator Gets Indicted
‘Corruption of the Highest Order’: Experts ‘Sickened’ at ‘Definitely Bought’ Clarence Thomas and His ‘Pay to Play’ Lifestyle
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