Terry McAuliffe seems to be pulling away from Ken Cuccinelli in the Virginia governor’s
race, and while I am no fan of McAuliffe, I can’t say I’m surprised.
In the new PPP poll, 44 percent support McAuliffe, 37 percent Cuccinelli, 9 percent libertarian Robert Sarvis and 9 percent are undecided.
That suggests there is room for Cuccinelli to gain in the fall when he is expected to step up his campaign, but his unfavorability rating might stop that cold.
PPP said that both men have higher unfavorability than favorability ratings, showing that voters continue to dislike their choice this year in the gubernatorial race. But Cuccinelli’s are higher.
For the attorney general, 54 percent have an unfavorable view and 35 percent a favorable one. For McAuliffe, it’s 48 percent unfavorable to 36 percent favorable.
Interesting that the Libertarian Party candidate is doing so well. As to why Cuccinelli has such a stubborn image problem, it seems to stem from his preoccupation with sodomy:
But it’s his recent war on consensual sodomy in the commonwealth that has raised the most eyebrows as the gubernatorial candidate has made the issue a centerpiece of the final months of his campaign.
His critics, including the ladies of The View and Jay Leno, have responded to Cuccinelli’s quest to reinstate Virginia’s anti-sodomy or, “Crimes Against Nature” law, with snickers and winks. The law is plainly unconstitutional—according to both a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision and a federal appeals court—and giggling about the attorney general’s creepy preoccupation with Virginians’ consensual oral sex makes for an easy comic target. But that focus obscures the real—even original—sin undergirding Cucinelli’s latest legal push: It’s a call for judges to read statutes to mean what they don’t say; a call for outright judicial activism, for freewheeling judicial interpretation—qualities legal thinkers on the right usually deplore.
The media focus on the giggliness of the subject-matter in question has obscured the audacity of the legal notion being advanced: That judges should read statutes the way they might read an optometrist’s eye chart—with a squint, a hand over one eye, and a prayer.
It has long been the mantra of Republican politicians that judges—especially elitist federal judges—should never, ever legislate from the bench. Now consider Attorney General Cuccinelli’s approach to Virginia’s sodomy law. The anti-sodomy statute, 18.2-361, applies to “any person” that “carnally knows any male or female person by the anus or by or with the mouth.” Yes. It bans all oral and anal sex. And for those who partake, the legal consequence is a felony conviction, possible imprisonment, and lifelong status as a sex offender.
In a manner similar to the liberal approach to the Constitution, Cuccinelli wants the courts to rewrite what I guess he thinks is “the living, breathing, sodomy law” in order to save it.
Which is not surprising. Philosophically, the man who wants to be Virginia’s governor is not merely anti-gay; he thinks gays belong in jail:
While running for attorney general in 2009, Cuccinelli explained that he opposed all “homosexual acts.”
“My view is that homosexual acts, not homosexuality, but homosexual acts are wrong,” he said at the time. “They’re intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural-law-based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that.”
I have one question. Why?
Why does the GOP persist in pushing this anti-gay crap when it is abundantly clear that
voters don’t like it? You’d think they would learn. How many losses does it take? What is wrong with them?
Naturally, liberals love running against Cuccinelli. It makes the job of electing a veteran political hack like McAuliffe so much easier.
Comments
14 responses to “Save our sodomy laws, even if it means losing to a Democratic hack!”
This is a weapons grade face-palm Mr. Atty. General. Sheesh.
While I hate to see McAuliffe elected (and I hold my nose and generally try to put the best face on GOP candidates), this Cuccinelli clown is a bit ridiculous. Glad I don’t live in VA, so I’m not faced with choosing between him and the Libertarian candidate.
republicans solved libertarian problem by raising the numer of signatures to libertarian candidate on ballot by 4000% and only libertarians can sign nomination petition since that is ten time then teir are registered libertarians the republicans solved the problem!
Cuccinelli might as well pin a “Social Moderates, please don’t vote for me!” sign on his back.
This is why Republicans can’t have nice things, like winning more elections.
ignorant southern white trash republicans need to inbreed more! every month in america 150,000 minority kids turn 18 voting age! every month. thats 6,000,000 every election cycle and nearly all of them hating the evil republicans who try to prevent them from voting with their voter surpression tactics! the g.o.p. motto If we cant prevent you from voting will you please vote for us! doesn’t work to well!
Congress shall make no low ordering people to bonk folks they don’t like.
Republicans can’t let go of hating gays because they hate gays. It isn’t complicated.
They don’t care about rights, privacy, freedom any more than the Democrats do (or don’t). One side wants to regulate what you do in your bedroom. The other wants to regulate the size of the soft-drink you can buy and consume. Neither is interested in personal freedom. Both are focused on government control of every part of your life.
And besides, the Republicans just hate gays.
As someone who has voted Republican, run for office repeatedly as a Republican, repeatedly served as a state convention delegate and county executive committee member, and of course spent countless hours listening to Republicans, I have to disagree with the notion that “Republicans just hate gays.” I think the anti-gay wing of the GOP is in a minority. The problem is that they’re so unreasonable that few want to argue with them.
In fact, a good case can be made that the hard core anti-gay faction consists of conspiracy-mongering, out-and-out lunatics. Their antics provide lots of fodder for the left, but most Republicans just ignore them and hope they’ll go away or at least quiet down.
To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, here’s a sampling of links I collected just yesterday:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/stan-solomon-trayvon-martin-deserved-die-and-so-does-faggot-dan-savage
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/robertson-gay-people-deliberately-spread-hivaids-cutting-people-special-rings
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rios-god-will-even-score-obama-and-gays
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/center-marriage-policy-worries-lesbians-will-trick-gay-men-fathering-their-children-and-beco
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/lopez-scott-brown-wont-help-ex-gay-movement-because-he-was-sexually-abused-himself
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/fischer-russias-anti-gay-law-exactly-sort-public-policy-weve-been-advocating
I mostly agree with Cuccinelli’s statement about homosexual acts, I live in Virginia, and I vote. I say mostly, because I would not use moral arguments. Homosexual acts are clearly unnatural, dangerous, and have societal impacts far beyond the consenting adults who engage in them. Scalia’s dissent in Lawrence was right on all counts and decriminalizing unnatural acts has led to all sorts of unintended deleterious consequences.
Sodomy laws were designed to curb homosexual sex and rightly so. No one really cares what anyone does behind closed doors, but if you want to drag your outré tastes into the public square, then objections will be raised.
Unfortunately for the commenters above, no Republican can win anywhere without us social conservatives.
Sodomy laws have little to do with dragging tastes into the public square. In fact, there are plenty of laws against lewdness, public indecency, and nudity — to say nothing of outright sex in public. As to exhibiting “tastes” which might raise objections, I’m unaware of laws in the U.S. specifically directed against bad taste. While there are laws recently enacted in Russia which prohibit “homosexual advocacy,” such advocacy has long been protected under the First Amendment. There is as much a right to condemn homosexuality as there is to promote it, and this was the case even when sodomy laws existed. (Similarly, advocacy of marijuana use is not and has never been a criminal offense — notwithstanding draconian laws against marijuana use.)
[…] what is an obvious First Amendment issue to me does not seem so obvious to others. Anyway, a commenter opined that “sodomy laws” act as a curb on tastes in the public square: I mostly agree with […]
[…] doing well against McAuliffe in the polls, and I wondered why that might be. Then, two weeks ago, I read this piece by Eric Scheie at Classical Values which made it clear for me why Cuccinelli was s…. Scheie quotes an article from Slate which maintains that Cuccinelli has fully embraced the […]
[…] would never have even considered voting for McAuliffe in my wildest dreams, but I would have had trouble voting for Cuccinelli because of his support for sodomy laws. I am sure I am not alone. […]
Homosexual acts are clearly unnatural
If homosexual acts are unnatural you don’t need laws against them. It is impossible to perform unnatural acts.