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Karen Owen's op-ed on Bob McDonnell, and a thesis to which we should have given better attention Date published: 3/15/2010 By Karen Owen LAST THURSDAY, Gov. He was entirely correct After all, late last summer, prior to the election for governor of Virginia, The Washington Post printed a story about GOP candidate Bob McDonnell's thesis as a public policy and law student at Regent University. The thesis was titled "The Republican Party's Vision for the Family: The Compelling Issue of the Decade." In his thesis, McDonnell wrote about family, women, and politics. Creigh Deeds, the Democrat, well behind in the polls, seized on his words as evidence of McDonnell's extremism, and attempted to portray his opponent as another in a long line of Republican ultraconservatives. Deeds hoped that voters would see McDonnell not as "Bob's 4 Jobs" or a new breed of Virginia Republican, but as someone who would take Virginia back to the ineptitude of Jim "No Car Tax" Gilmore, to the meanness of George "Macaca" Allen, or to a would-be senator "Convicted Felon" Oliver North. (Candidate North was the perfect example of the GOP motto: "Would rather be 'right' than elected.") Democrat Deeds was seen as the desperate candidate that he was. "Running scared" was how opinion writers saw it. Deeds was taking the low road; mud-slinging in a fashion similar to "swift-boating" or being unkind to that sweet Sarah Palin. When this latest example of state-sanctioned discrimination was revealed, I was beginning to think that we should have paid closer attention to Gov. McDonnell's thesis after all. The House of Delegates had tabled legislation that would have barred discrimination in the state work force based on sexual orientation, and the governor at first refused to take In 1989, when McDonnell was 34, he wrote: "Every level of government should statutorily and procedurally prefer married couples over cohabitators, homosexuals, or fornicators. The cost of sin should fall on the sinner, not the taxpayer." He further stated that government should intervene on societal issues, writing that "man's basic nature is inclined towards evil, and when the exercise of liberty takes the shape of pornography, drug abuse, or homosexuality, the government must restrain, punish, and deter."
The problem here is not that religious people hold the notion of homosexuality being a sin; but that they use that notion as a means for discrimination which is, federally - and should be here in VA - illegal. Also, the idea of still using religious texts to support this is just so outdated. There are so many items in the bible that were held as "sins" in its era and have long since been forgotten; why not this? Because it's "gross" or "unnatural"? Tell me any act in this day of age that is natural?
on issues that arise out of the clash between the rights of homosexuals and the rights of those who hold religious beliefs that homosexuality as sinful. This must be beyond the ken of Ms. Owens but this is par for the course for much of her pieces. Sigh.
of present day journalism when she reached so disingenuously and inappropriately for a Hitler comparison in her piece. She embarrasses not only herself but also the editorial board of the Free Lance Star. Historically, the disfavor shown homosexuality has as a motivation the desire for a people's survival-as in promoting reproduction to replace those who die. The other minor detail is that it is not yet legal to include homosexuals in the protected class for discrimination purposes.
Not that I think that Gov. McD thinks this now, but when he wrote in his thesis that married people should be considered more seriously than homosexuals - while that is not necessarily direct fear or hatred - is an idea of discrimination. The discrimination is based on the idea (read: fear/worry) that these "less considered" individuals would perform worse than those who were married.
doesn't automatically mean they fear that lifestyle. Just because they don't embrace it doesn't mean they hate it. Please show me where they've shown fear or hate. Disagreement, yes. Failure to embrace or actively support a lifestyle, maybe so. Believing in a different lifestyle, apparently. But show me where they've shown hatred or fear of gays and/or lesbians?
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