Don’t Carry Me Back to Ole Virginny….

Virginia today is not a place I recognize.  Being Virginia born and bred, I know being from Virginia becomes a part of one’s intrinsic identity.  Virginian’s used to be known for being educated, cultured and well mannered.  That stereotype is now gone with the wind, thanks to the influx of the Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson groupies who have taken over Virginia’s state government.  Here is a glaring example:

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From Thinkprogress.org :

Virginia attorney general instructs state colleges to stop protecting gay students from discrimination.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli

Just weeks after Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) refused to renew an executive order that would have protected gay and lesbian state workers from discrimination, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is asking the state’s colleges and universities “to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.” Cuccinelli — who has previously argued “homosexual acts are…intrinsically wrong” — wrote a letter to all of the state’s public colleges and universities:

“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,” he wrote. Colleges that have included such language in their policies — which include all of Virginia’s leading schools — have done so “without proper authority” and should “take appropriate actions to bring their policies in conformance with the law and public policy of Virginia,” Cuccinelli wrote.

Most colleges protect gays from anti-discrimination and violence. Earlier this month, students at John Carroll University, a Jesuit college in Cleveland Ohio, staged a sit-in to protest “the university’s decisions not to include the protection of sexual orientation of in its anti-discrimination statement.” Other Jesuit universities, like “Canisius College, College of the Holy Cross, Georgetown University, Gonzaga University, Le Moyne College, and St. Louis University” all include “sexual orientation in their anti-discrimination policies.” The blogger Joe.My.God. writes, “Virginia is going to have a VERY hard time attracting top students and faculty after this, not to mention the inevitable backlash against people or companies willing to work with the Virginia higher education system.”

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This is truly a disgrace.  This basically says the state is sanctioning abuse of gay students at it’s Colleges and Universities.  It is also a blatant attempt to impose their religious views on our institutions of higher learning.  I remember when the protestant religious leaders worked for things like Civil Rights, equality for women and social justice.  The Falwell/Robertson crew seems to want women to be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen while only straight white male landed gentry run the world– or at least the state of Virginia.

These people are even more dangerous because they know their days are numbered.

Whether the Religious Wrong likes it or not, we are moving irrevocably toward a multi-cultural open society.  That is the good news.  It’s too late to go back.  The bad news is they are going to throw up every roadblock they can on the way there.  When this crew was elected in Virginia, I saw this coming.  They operated as Stealth Candidates– only talking about the economy and downplaying their social agenda.  In other words, they lied.

What is Christian about this?  About wanting to make people vulnerable to attack and descrimination?  From what I recall of the New Testament, the main message was of love and acceptance.  “Love thy Neighbor as Thyself”.  Jesus concentrated on feeding the hungry-both physically and spiritually.   He did not spend time with the religious or political establishment, but rather with the downtrodden, the outcasts and the lost and searching.  The only act of anger I readily recall was running the money changers from the temple because they were profiting off God.  Kind of like some Republicans and the Falwell/Robertson crew.

As Gandhi said:  “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ”

For the first time in my life, I can say I’m glad I no longer live in Virginia.  I don’t recognize this New Dominion.

As Virgina’s Thomas Jefferson wrote:

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.”