CMI Commentary: Post Calls Virginia GOP Attorney General Candidate a Bigot
Pity the staff at the Washington Post. Their compatriots at the
Every now and then the Post publishes the journalistic equivalent of an involuntary shudder at its plight. The latest was an Oct. 30 editorial excoriating Ken Cuccinelli, the GOP candidate for
Cuccinelli said homosexual acts are "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."
Heavens! The Post called this “ugly nonsense” and posited that Attorney General Cuccinelli “would be an embarrassment to
Nice that the paper is looking out for the Commonwealth's reputation, as it has been all during the current campaign season in
But the Post continues to try to save the Old Dominion from itself. “… let's call his comments what they are: bigotry,” the editorial thundered. “Appeals to 'natural law' and 'intrinsic' rights and wrongs were the usual cliches deployed to justify the old-time religion of hatred then directed at African Americans, Jews, Italians, Irish and other immigrants.”
Of course, if you asked those put-upon minorities back then what they thought of homosexual acts, you might just experience of some of that old-time religion. And many of their descendents aren't quite as enlightened as the Post would want – given the chance last fall to grant the 'intrinsic' right for gays to marry, a majority of Californians just said no.
The editorial further worried that the job Cuccinelli seeks would allow him to put his “bizarre ideas” into practice. Never mind that “he says he would not ask job applicants to the 166-lawyer office about their sexuality, and his spokesman says openly gay employees would not be 'rooted out' and fired.” The Post wondered, “since he would be empowered to issue opinions on such questions, how would he regard such firings generally in state government, in which a 110,000-strong workforce undoubtedly includes thousands of homosexuals?” Well if he wouldn't discriminate in his own department, why would he tolerate it in others?
It's irrational. But you really can blame the Posties. Just a year after
Congress passed a hate crimes amendment covering sexual orientation this week – something we can be sure the Posties approve of. But thoughts and beliefs still are not proscribed by the government (unless you were entertaining them while, say, beating someone with a tire iron). What bothers the Post is that someone still believes, whether for religious or philosophical reasons, in something that was unquestionable just a few decades ago.
Cuccinelli has a comfortable lead over his opponent, Steve Shannon, which must remind the Post of its exposed position on the frontier, frighteningly close to so many people who share, or are at least comfortable with, Cuccinelli's heresy.
Like this article? Sign up for "Culture Links," CMI's weekly e-mail newsletter, by clicking here.
