What’s
Wrong Today:
Just
when you think Republicans couldn’t possibly make bigger asses out of themselves,
Virginia’s Attorney
General Ken Cuccinelli,
and Republican nominee for governor, launched a new campaign
website this week highlighting
his efforts to reinstate Virginia’s
unconstitutional Crimes Against Nature law.
The proposed law makes felons out of consenting couples who engage in oral or anal sex in
the privacy of their own homes. The law was struck down by federal courts after Cuccinelli
blocked efforts to bring it in line with the Supreme Court’s 2003 Lawrence v. Texas
ruling.
Republicans have left
their party of “small government” brand in the rear view mirror. It’s become the
party of banning abortions, disenfranchising minorities, cutting the poor off from food stamps, trying to ban online adult porn sites such as https://www.m-porn.xxx/, and now,
attempting once again to regulate sexual
conduct between consenting adults.
Apparently, Cuccinelli
see no conflict with promoting “small government” while simultaneously working
to insert his little government into the sex lives of American citizens. For a
party sworn to defend freedom and liberty, this strategy seems inconsistent and
more than a little hypocritical.
The unconstitutional
Crimes Against Nature law Cuccinelli wants to reinstate is disingenuously cloaked in the battle to protect children against
sexual predators. While that is a worthwhile goal, what he fails to
mention is that the law contains language that essentially criminalizes all non-missionary
position and non-procreative sex acts. Cuccinelli’s proposed law states:
any person carnally knows in any manner any brute animal, or carnally knows any
male or female person by the anus or by or with the mouth, or voluntarily
submits to such carnal knowledge, he or she shall be guilty of a Class 6
felony…
Cuccinelli says that
the law “is only applied to sodomy committed against minors, against
non-consenting adults, or in public,” but what he has proposed criminalizes the private behavior of consenting adults. Apparently, he
knows so little about sex that he doesn’t realize that sexual predators might use the missionary position.
Virginia and all other states have
laws against molesting children. Cuccinelli’s law just restricts consensual
adult behavior. It is a continuation of the quest by the conservative anti-government
crew to get into your bedroom while they stay away from your predatory lending
policies, your tax evasion strategies or your plan to gut most of the Bill of
Rights.
In 2009, the Virginia Pilot
reported on Mr. Cuccinelli’s view of why he supported restrictions on the
sexual behavior of consenting adults:
view is that homosexual acts, not homosexuality, but homosexual acts are wrong.
They’re 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.
So, it’s the
homophobia that is driving him, not those straight Virginians indulging in oral
sex.
If
Mr. Cuccinelli’s ban on “unnatural” sex acts applied nationwide, the
Virginia law would make 90% of men and women in the US between the
age of 25 and 44 criminals. Check out this chart from the National
Center on Health Statistics on sexual behavior in the US:
Before it
was declared unconstitutional, violating Virginia’s Crimes Against Nature
statute carried a penalty of between one and five years in prison. The Virginia
Department of Corrections prison system only has a capacity of around 30,000. But 64.6%
of Virginia’s 8 million citizens are between the ages of 18 and 65, so the
state lacks the prison capacity to house anywhere near the millions of
Virginians who, in Mr. Cuccinelli’s view, have most certainly committed crimes
against nature.
What about
the sexual behavior of Mr. Cuccinelli and his aides? Mother
Jones asked his campaign if Cuccinelli or anyone working for his campaign
had ever engaged in any of the prohibited conduct and if so, whether Mr. Cuccinelli would
fire them.
MoJo received
no response.
Racism
was once expressed by conservatives as “states’ rights.” Republicans call
Obamacare an “attack on our liberty.” The most oppressive and
invasive measures by the NSA are trumpeted as “ensuring
security.”
And now, in Cuccinelli’s Virginia, homophobia is
“Think of the CHILDREN!”
A sad commentary on
the state of Republican politics in Virginia was that Mr. Cuccinelli won the nomination
for governor by
acclimation.
After his latest effort to again pass an unconstitutional law,
PPP’s most recent poll of Virginia voters
shows Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe leading Mr. Cuccinelli 41% to 37%. Cuccinelli is viewed in a mostly negative
light by the state, as only 32% of the state has a favorable opinion,
while 47% has an unfavorable opinion of him, including 57% of independents. How can it be so close?
Some of
you Virginia residents are probably hoping to break some laws tonight.
Remember, it’s only illegal if you
catch someone ELSE doing it.
It remains astonishing that Republicans aren’t labelled at hypocrites when they do this. I mean really. Without going into the details, let’s just all acknowledge that most (99.9%?) of couples try a little odd stuff, from blah blah, to blah blah. So who is kidding who. Yet, the media seems to willing to let the words go unchallenged.