Sometimes you’ve got to wonder what kind of impression Virginians are making on the world. If it’s not Abuser Fees snagging national headlines, it’s what you read on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Just today, two Virginians, both from Prince William County, figure prominently in separate articles.
Bundling up for Hillary. Pamela Layton, a resident of the Bristow community, donated $4,600 to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in March, the Journal reports. That’s quite generous for someone who says, “I don’t even like Hillary. I’m a Republican.” It turns out that Layton works for William Danielcyzk, founder of a “Washington-area private firm” (apparently McLean-based Galen Capital Corp.) and a major Clinton fund-raiser. The money she donated was not her own, Layton says. She says Danielcyzk reimbursed her husband and her. Danielcyzk denies the allegation.
If the charges are true, it looks like we have a Norman Hsu-scale scandal brewing, and Northern Virginia is at the eye of the storm.
Theological Offshoring. The Rev. John Gurnsey, pastor of the All Saints’ Church in Woodbridge, has been anointed an Episcopalian bishop — by the Anglican Church of Uganda. Although Gurnsey accepts the idea that women can serve as ministers — his wife is one — he takes issue with the Episcopal church’s disregard for Old Testament teachings castigating homosexuality. In that regard, he shares a lot in common with the traditional-minded Anglican churches of Africa. Like many socially conservative Episcopalians, he is looking to the African church for identity and support.
Whatever one thinks about the gays-as-ministers debate, we can take consolation in one thing: The idea that a Virginia minister would seek theological legitimacy from an African church leader would have been utterly unthinkable a generation ago. Racial identity among social conservatives in Virginia seems to figure a lot less prominently these days than it does to race hustlers like Jesse Jackson, who has just accused Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama of “acting white.”