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Loading ...Virginia gov candidate wrote anti-gay masters thesis
09.01.2009 12:27pm EDT
(Richmond, Va) Virginia’s Republican candidate for governor said Monday he no longer believes his argument in a graduate thesis written 20 years ago that discrimination against gays and other groups is acceptable for the benefit of straight, married couples.
Bob McDonnell’s research paper, first reported Sunday by The Washington Post, shakes up what had been a smooth campaign. McDonnell has maintained a clear lead over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds in statewide polling.In his first public comment on the 93-page conservative manifesto he wrote at the close of the Reagan presidency in 1989, McDonnell dismissed the paper as a long-ago academic exercise. He said life had moderated views he held then that government should “prefer married couples over cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators.” Working women and feminists were also a detriment to families, he wrote.
The treatise, titled “The Republican Party’s Vision for the Family: The Compelling Issue of the Decade,” singled out the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling legalizing abortion and a ruling the previous year that legalized contraceptives for unmarried people. McDonnell, a Roman Catholic, has said abortions should be performed only to save the life of the mother.
Deeds’ campaign adviser Mo Elleithee said McDonnell was 34 and on the verge of running for the Virginia House of Delegates when he wrote the paper, and can’t shrug it off as misguided youth.
However, McDonnell complained that Deeds’ campaign was exploiting the thesis to suggest he supported workplace discrimination against women. He noted that his daughters have master’s degrees and that the oldest had served with the Army in Iraq.
McDonnell described himself as a “college student at the time, albeit a little older college student, within an academic environment and completely not restrained by the real policy world at the time.”
McDonnell wrote the thesis as a course requirement for his master’s and law degrees from Regent University, the Christian college founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson. In it, he wrote that “If the government at all levels has a duty to uphold the family, then it follows that it has the authority to legitimately discriminate in support of this goal.”
Asked if the statement still reflects his philosophy, he said it would be written much differently today.
“I don’t think the government’s got much business when it comes to cohabitation or any other living arrangements whatsoever,” he said.
Would anyone expect any less from a politician from the most hateful, hypocritical state in the union. They have the longest history of sins against humanity and are still pursuing this course.
while I find his Master’s thesis disturbing, his activity since then needs to be examined to determine where is current philosophies might lie. Church affliation, interaction in his schools for his daughters and other affliations need close scrutiny.
The revelation of his master’s thesis should hurt him a lot. His views essentially write off a majority of the population as deviants, notwithstanding the significant number of others that would oppose him as well.
>McDonnell described himself as a “college student at the time, albeit a little older college student, within an academic environment and completely not restrained by the real policy world at the time.”
I actually find this to be *very* indicative of many, MANY Republicans. For us other people, policy and politics is about concrete, practical, real-life issues: single moms feeding babies, getting health insurance when you’re unemployed, getting loans to go to school, trying to keep a job without being fired for a non-job-related issue (like being a woman, African American, gay, a veteran, and so on).
For many Republicans, it’s about being right. It’s about being philosophically correct. For many Republicans, they and those around them are not touched by many of these issues. So, it lends itself to this whole “academic exercise” or “PR marketing warfare exercise” thing that Republicans get into.
Unfortunately, it also gives them a strategic advantage. Because, for us, our hearts and passion are often involved…we “care” about the people and the issue. The Republicans just care about winning, being right, and using whatever strategy lends itself to those goals. It makes one more brutally efficient to be detached from anything other than winning the game.
Probably the only time I see most Republicans get really passionately wrapped up in something is traditional, flag-waving, love-it-or-leave-it patriotism. That’ll get them to cry or rage.
The hypocrisy of the Republican party is just disgusting. They claim to be the party of small government, yet get government involved with completely private issues. Honestly, how “big brother” can government get if it has a “vision” of what constitutes an appropriate family?
If Mr. McDonnell no longer believes what he wrote in his Master’s thesis, fine! However, he needs to prove by actions that he no longer believes in discrimination against LGBT people.
I find it hard to believe that his views have changed… in my experience of all the people age thirty and over I know, they are pretty set in their ways and beliefs. I find it hard to believe that in 20 years he went from being basically anti-civil rights to liberal democrat standing on such issues.
@ Gerry Fisher–SO well said!
Let him prove that he isn’t the punk who wrote that piece of crap 20 years ago. What does he stand for?
I expect there to be a serious urge to dodge his held beliefs of that past time and his current political run in this most backward state in the Union. He has already started attacking his opponent as a liberal, par for the course for these right-wing fanatics in politics.
May Goddess Bless Those Who Learn and Grow!
Blessed Be,
Rev. Draigh Lunara
PS. I have to say when this state voted for Barack Obama I was very, very impressed!