I
t was such a strange scene, I had to pinch myself. Here at Virginia Commonwealth University, in the middle of Richmond, that “hotbed of civil rest” about a thousand students held signs touting “Keep Your Gospel Off My Gonads” and other slogans as they listened to a professor note how the father of computer science was openly gay.
How did sleepy VCU in staid old Richmond become a 60s flashback so quickly?
The immediate reason, of course, was Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s new and highly volatile attorney general, who seized upon the failure of a state Senate bill to expand protection to state gay workers and issued a sweeping legal opinion to public colleges that their anti-discrimination policies regarding sexual orientation were no longer valid.
Very quickly, Virginia became the object of derision nationally, not to mention a farce on “the Daily Show” national TV comedy, Gov. Bob McDonnell, the state’s new governor who put gays on the same level as “fornicators” in a master’s thesis he wrote in the 1980s, quickly backpedaled. He overrode Cuccinelli at a dramatic press conference and issued a toothless “declaration” that the state would not tolerate discrimination against gay state workers.
Of course, McDonnell could have put such a declaration in an executive order as former Govs. Mark Warner and Time Kaine, both moderate Democrats, did. Then it would have actually had some bite. But McDonnell touched off the controversy by kicking the anti-gay matter to the General Assembly, knowing it would die quickly.
Such antics smack of “Amateur Hour.” Even the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which predictably ran a front page photo of McDonnell at his press conference in a phony, dramatic pose reminiscent of George Washington or other brave American patriot, editorialized that this whole mess is a shame.
To me, it raises two big questions:
(1) Don’t Cuccinelli and McDonnell understand what damage they have done to Virginia with this half-assed grandstanding? Most state colleges have anti-discrimination policies protecting gays. There are good reasons to do so. To accomplish their missions, colleges must be open and diverse. Plus, if they don’t have such anti-discrimination policies, they won’t qualify for untold thousands of dollars in private foundation and grant money which state clearly that the money won’t go to homophobic college systems. The American Association of University Professors says that Cuccinelli’s opinion is “outrageous” and “chilling” since it would make the state college system a pariah when it tries to recruit top academic talent. And after Virginia has added some luster to its reputation as a good place to live and do business, the Old Dominion suddenly is the butt of jokes on the Comedy Channel, which carries a hell of a lot of weight in terms of national image.
(2) Who’s running the store? Both McDonnell and Cuccinelli are cut from the same cloth. They are die-hard, right wing social conservatives who want to cash in on the backlash against Barack Obama as he struggles to chart a course after the disastrous George W. Bush years. McDonnell ran a smart campaign by downplaying the extreme views of his political past. The rumor was that he was trying to keep Cuccinelli on a tight leash. But what’s the real deal here? Are we looking at Good Cop, Bad Cop? Do we really buy McDonnell’s excuse that he has had to rein in
“Cooch” when he was the one that set the whole thing up in the first place?
“Cooch” when he was the one that set the whole thing up in the first place?
Meanwhile, McDonnell has extended lots of corporate welfare offers to get Northrop Grumman to locate in Virginia, even though he has trashed the firm for its trouble technology contract with the state and has threatened to drive the defense contractor away with these homophobic policies.
With the General Assembly nearly over, what do we have to show for it? Millions of dollars for education and many jobs have been cut. But we spent a lot of time arguing over whether some pistol-toting cowboy can bring his loaded .44 into a bar. State parks closed. Highway bathrooms opened. Offshore oil OK, if any when it is explored and even if no major oil firm has expressed any interest in it. I don’t know where putting toll booths on the southern entrances to Interstates 85 and 95 went, but it reminds me of Mel Brooks erecting a toll booth in the middle of the desert in the comedy “Blazing Saddles.” As Slim Pickens says, “Any of you guys got any quarters?”
So, we are left with two rather frightening questions. Is the McDonnell gang simply incompetent? Or is there a much broader agenda?
Take heart, though. I was truly impressed with the kids at VCU. With people like them, we’ll survive this.
Peter Galuszka