Undoing Bob McDonnell's Homophobia

by Michael Jones · 2010-03-02 15:49:00 UTC
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VirginiaBob McDonnell has been Virginia's governor for barely a month, and he's already starting to craft a legacy as one of the most anti-gay governors in the country. Sure, there's his college thesis from years back where he blamed President Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" agenda for modern day homosexuality. But even more telling is one of his first actions as governor, where he struck down a policy that would have extended anti-discrimination protections to LGBT state employees.

What does that mean? In no uncertain terms, it means that employees can be fired in Virginia simply on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. You can be the best state employee in entire Commonwealth, but if you're gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, the state of Virginia can legally fire you.

And Bob McDonnell wears that fact with a badge of honor.

But if Bob McDonnell thinks he can maintain hardcore homophobic policies and remain unchallenged, he's got another thing coming. Already, legislators in Virginia are organizing to pass legislation that would add sexual orientation to the state's anti-discrimination policy. The measure has passed the State Senate, and now it's going before the Virginia House. Send the Virginia House a message that they have a responsibility to undo the homophobic actions of their state's governor, and write sexual orientation into the state's anti-discrimination law.

Virginia's previous governor, Tim Kaine, signed an executive order that added sexual orientation to the state's anti-discrimination when he was in office. It's that executive order that Bob McDonnell didn't renew. And that has Tim Kaine's former Secretary of Administration, Viola Baskerville, giving voice to equal rights advocates by blasting the McDonnell administration.

"Discrimination is wrong and we need to say so," said Baskerville.

Even Republicans in the state think that McDonnell went overboard. Rick Sincere of the Republican Liberty Caucus told the Richmond Times Dispatch that sexual orientation shouldn't matter when it comes to employment, and it would be wrong to fire folks solely on the basis of their sexual orientation.

"It’s not the place of the government to discriminate on irrelevant characteristics of employment,“ said Sincere.

Unless you're talking about the administration of Bob McDonnell. For his administration, allowing discrimination on the basis of completely irrelevant factors is just par for the course. And that could actually have disastrous consequences for the state. There's actually a semi-organized campaign to get defense technology company Northrop Grumman to build a corporate office in Maryland -- where state laws are much more LGBT-friendly -- instead of Virginia.

Let the Virginia House know that Bob McDonnell is simply wrong on the issue of anti-discrimination. Ask them to add sexual orientation to the list of anti-discrimination protections for state employees.

Photo credit: Joe Shlabotnik

Michael Jones is a Change.org Editor. He has worked in the field of human rights communications for a decade, most recently for Harvard Law School.
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