To the University of Virginia community,
Like all of you, we were shocked when Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli told our colleges and universities they could not prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation. Not only was the attorney general’s advice legally questionable, but it sends the absolute wrong message about the atmosphere in Virginia. We have always known this to be a welcoming and respectful place, but our attorney general wants to make members of the LGBT community second-class citizens.
Let us bring you up to date on the latest developments in Richmond regarding the fight against discrimination. Governor Bob McDonnell, who removed protections for gay workers from his nondiscrimination executive order, issued an “executive directive” against discrimination in the state workforce. This is a good gesture, but unfortunately does not carry any weight of law and it does not provide a course of action for students or employees who are discriminated against because of their sexual orientation. We feel that everyone has the right to work and learn in an environment free from discrimination which is why we voted last month to put discrimination protections in the law. All 22 of our fellow Democratic senators supported the bill with only one Republican joining us. However, the Republican-controlled House of Delegates killed the measure and Governor McDonnell’s office said he had “no position” on the legislation.
So where do we stand now? No matter what Attorney General Cuccinelli says, your schools should continue to be places that welcome the best and brightest from all over the world regardless of age, race, sexual orientation or any other characteristic. Our campuses are, and will continue to be, places where people of all backgrounds and ideologies engage in civil dialogue to produce well-rounded citizens that will be the workforce of tomorrow. The University of Virginia is more than capable of deciding what policies advance its mission, and should do so without meddling from Attorney General Cuccinelli. We have been encouraged and proud to see so many students repudiate the misguided advice of Attorney General Cuccinelli, but the most important thing you can do to combat this is to make sure that your campus communities embrace and respect all students and faculty and value their contributions to your education. Meanwhile, as your state senators, we will continue to fight for meaningful discrimination protections for all Virginians.
Sen. R. Creigh Deeds
Sen. Mark Herring, Clas ‘83
Sen. Ralph S. Northam
Once again the conservative republicans in the state are as usual confusing their religious beliefs, their personal agendas, their hatred and prejudice and their own personal interpretation of the Preamble to the Consitution and the Bill of Rights that is Federal Law and trancends state law. It seems to me that delegates in Virginia need to become acquainted with the Constitution because they have apparently never read it nor do they understand what it means. This once again puts Virginia in a backward light in view of the world as a very poor example of democracy something that is local and home grown insstead of national in scope.
The day is coming when rural delegates will no longer be in a majority in the House as the population grows in the major areas of the state and their representation finally overtakes the rural conservative areas of the state. Some day soon the atmosphere among delegates is going to change. Yes Virginia there really is a Santa Clause.
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Thanks for the encouraging words Creigh.
I wish you had been more pro-gay when you were running for governor. I couldn’t get excited for your candidacy after watching a particular youtube video of you vacillating on marriage rights. Moran was much more enthusiastically an ally of the LGBTQ community in all regards. That said, you certainly had my vote over the extremist McDonnell.
I am glad that you are working hard in the General Assembly and I hope that a bill similar to SB66 passes once the session opens up again. Sexual orientation and “gender identity and expression” must be added into the Virginia Human Rights Act so we can settle this issue once and for all. I hope that our Congressmen have pledged their support or cosponsored ENDA. It seems like the nation will do the right thing before backwards Virginia ever will…
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“regardless of age, race, sexual orientation or any other characteristic.”
Regardless of age? I dont think a positive atmosphere is supported by destroying the youthful community of a university. Additionally “any other characteristic” is a terrible thing to endorse. How about creativity, entrepreneurial spirit, intellectual curiosity, enthusiasm, diligence? These are all characteristics which we are all judged by.
And to Seth, stop making gay rights a bigger issue than it is. The rest of us could really not care less and wish you would just go away. Essentially every political topic is much more important to the general populace so make a judgment based on something important.
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Joseph, I’m betting you were just as enthusiastic about your wild notions of how the election results in Virginia will change soon in 1976, and again in 1992. Only Santa Claus can make your perpetual dreams come true in a year where Ted Kennedy’s seat was won by a republican a few weeks after his death, and where Bob McDonnell won the governor’s race by the largest margin in 40 years. Oh, and you never answered my question about your stance on whether incestuous and/or polygamous marriages should be legal also.
You know that constitution makes no mention of gays, and neither does any other document of its time. Meanwhile, infants are being beheaded and thrown in the garbage at UVA hospital at a state funded university. Their human rights and their right to a) life, b) liberty, and c) the pursuit of happiness are all being denied on a weekly basis – and neither you nor anyone writing this letter has any problem at all with that.
http://www.uvalies.org/accords.html
So to invoke human rights and pretend you support them for this one particular class of people while you trash them for another invalidates your horror at what isn’t even happening anyway regarding gays at Virginia universities. There is no great injustices being suffered by gays at Virgina schools to do all this grandstanding about.
Creigh, by all means, please keep running for statewide office as often as possible.
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Senator Deeds,
I am a registered Democrat in Shenandoah County. I appreciate your efforts on behalf of responsible, ethical, equitable governance in Virginia. I particularly applaud your defense of the rights of all Virginia residents to be accorded fair treatment in the work place (academic, governmental, or other) regardless of race, age, gender, or sexual orientation. I also would like to register my displeasure–no, make that my outrage–at the idea of the Attorney General wasting the state’s fiscal resources in such an egregious act of stupidity as appealing to the Supreme Court for the repeal of the Health Care Reform Act. Aside from the fact that the Act is obviously beneficial to the citizens of the Commonwealth, the self-serving behavior of Mr. Cuccinelli is both fruitless and disingenuous. At a time when Virginians need jobs, education, infrastructure improvements, and, yes, better health care, we have better things to do with our tax dollars. Thank you.
Shirley Maxwell
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Senator Ralph S. Northam,
Please explain why you voted to kill Virginia State House Bill HB334 recently in the Virginia State Senate that would have would have required abortion providers such as the University of Virginia to inform and warn women that the procedure causes preterm births later in life, and thus any number of developmental disabilities and other birth defects for innocent children.
You can see links to just 6 of many extensive medical studies on the subject here:
http://www.uvalies.org/birthdefects.html
This is slam dunk science, not politics.
I’d like you to give us a complete explanation as to why you voted to kill this bill that passes 95 to 4 in the State House that COULD HAVE saved thousands of Virginia’s mothers and children from these horrors that have already deformed so many children, and devastated so many families. We will be updating our website soon with a “Virginia politicians who cause, finance, and support birth defects” page. We are giving you a chance to explain yourself first.
Senators Herring and Deeds, feel free to pipe in with your thoughts on this egregious example of politics trumping science to the detriment of the health and well being of Virginia’s mothers and children if you like. Would you have appreciated the opportunity to vote on this bill in the full senate, or are you glad it just went away?
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What does abortion have to do with homosexuality? Again Sean, this is why no one cares a wit about what you say.
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Bob,
Your inability to debate a topic has nothing to do with me. Nor do you have the slightest idea who does and does not care about what I say. Just as I don’t know who does and does not care about what you say (although, admittedly, I have an assumption with regard to that..)
The letter here was about rights. About who has them, and who does not have them. And I am simply reminding some who may have hiccuped a bit in terms of their grasp of the here and now that discrimination against gays is basically non existent around here. So there is no crisis of any kind that these state senators are grandstanding about by writing to this paper.
Furthermore, I noticed Mr. Northam’s name amongst the ones we will be adding to our website along with the ten others who voted against this bill to adequately warn and inform women of the science of abortion. So I figured I’d give all three lads an opportunity to tell the entire community all about what they think about this bill being killed in committee before the state senate could even vote on it. We’ll see if they respond.. I bet they won’t.
Love may be indeed be love. But life is definitely life no matter how you slice it. The existence of life is a far more identifiable and discernible thing scientifically. It has to do with DNA, chromosomes, when gender is decided – and even later when a heart starts to beat. This includes people who grow up to be attracted to the same sex. All of our lives began at the same starting point.
Unfortunately for some, it is thwarted and deformed in it’s early stages by something their mother did (or was forced to do) in college. I’m just curious as to what the senators think of the rights of these people, and why they are ensuring that there will be even more of them. And that includes the gay teenagers drooling on themselves with severe cerebral palsy in their wheelchairs as well as the straight ones.
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There is something terribly wrong when a government of and by the people will not protect any minority from harmful acts due to prejudice and bigotry; and, when the actor is their government.
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Sean,
I have no interest in debating you. Why? Because I agree with you! If you’d taken a moment to ask me where I stand, instead of lecturing me, you’d know that already. I completely, on the issues involved, agree with you.
I’m writing my comments to you because I see all the comments you receive and it’s crystal clear no one reads what you have to say, or gives a damn, cause all you do is turn people off, again, you remind me of Brother Micah. It bothers me, cause I agree with you, yet you make sure no one listens, and all us pro-life people seem a little crazier.
Grow up, or stop posting here. You’re hurting us more than you realize.
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Sean, I dont remember any pro life issure being the subject of the aforementioned article from Virginia representatives? I think the subject was about discrimination towards gay folks? Right?
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Bob,
I don’t believe you. If indeed you have noticed “all the comments I receive” and that the threads I comment on here are the most commented on the site – then how exactly is it that nobody could possibly be reading what I write? How exactly can you explain the math regarding that?
If you are part of an “us” that is active in pro life at UVA, then you will have no problem identifying yourself – and show us all what it is that YOU are doing. You certainly are not doing anything here other than pursuing a rather obsessive compulsive disdain for me. I could care less.
I am in regular contact with Lila Rose, Rebecca Kiessling, Fletcher Armstrong, and other national leaders. My group has nearly doubled in size since I started commenting here (or, more correctly, my comments stopped being deleted by the editors when the new staff took over). We have people inside the hospital also. Haven’t heard any “you’re crazy” comments from any of them. Everything is going quite well at present. SO why the hell would I start listening to you?
Joseph, the letter was written by three state senators and the subject is discrimination and the rights of all people. I am likewise talking about human rights, and merely reminding the senators that there is a grand canyon sized gap in their half hearted defense of human rights. Either human rights includes everybody, or it does not. They are at present seeking to thwart the rights of some that are violated every day at UVA, and instead grandstanding about some other discrimination that is tiny in comparison. Nobody has been beheaded for being gay at UVA recently. At least two infants will meet exactly that fate in the UVA hospital this week, in a procedure that is expressly forbidden by the UDHR, the Nuremburg Protocol, and the Declaration of Geneva signed by the United Nations after the Nazi Doctors Trial.
Additionally, Ralph Northam – a co signer of this letter – recently killed a bill in committee that passed the state house of delegates 95-4. I have challenged him to explain why science must be suppressed in such a foul way on behalf of politics. And I’ll ask him again why such a bill was never allowed to go before the senate for a vote.
I’m sure that a supporter of Jim Crow was just as annoyed as you if someone brought up black voting rights in a conversation about women’s voting rights back in 1920.
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Bob,
I don’t believe you. If indeed you have noticed “all the comments I receive” and that the threads I comment on here are the most commented on the site – then how exactly is it that nobody could possibly be reading what I write? How exactly can you explain the math regarding that?
If you are part of an “us” that is active in pro life at UVA, then you will have no problem identifying yourself – and show us all what it is that YOU are doing. You certainly are not doing anything here other than pursuing a rather obsessive compulsive disdain for me. I could care less.
I am in regular contact with Lila Rose, Rebecca Kiessling, Fletcher Armstrong, and other national leaders. Bob Marshall in Richmond also. My group has nearly doubled in size since I started commenting here (or, more correctly, my comments stopped being deleted by the editors when the new staff took over). We have people inside the hospital also. I’m meeting with the gal who quit Planned Parenthood later this week. Haven’t heard any “you’re crazy” comments from any of them.. Everything is going quite well at present. SO… why the hell would I start listening to you? =o)
Joseph, the letter was written by three state senators and the subject is discrimination and the rights of all people. I am likewise talking about human rights, and merely reminding the senators that there is a grand canyon sized gap in their half hearted defense of human rights. Either human rights includes everybody, or it does not. They are at present seeking to thwart the rights of some that are violated every day at UVA, and instead grandstanding about some other discrimination that is tiny in comparison. Nobody has been beheaded for being gay at UVA recently. At least two infants will meet exactly that fate in the UVA hospital this week, in a procedure that is expressly forbidden by the UDHR, the Nuremburg Protocol, and the Declaration of Geneva signed by the United Nations after the Nazi Doctors Trial.
Additionally, Ralph Northam – a co signer of this letter – recently killed a bill in committee that passed the state house of delegates 95-4. I have challenged him to explain why science must be suppressed in such a foul way on behalf of politics. And I’ll ask him again why such a bill was never allowed to go before the senate for a vote.
I’m sure that a supporter of Jim Crow was just as annoyed as you if someone brought up black voting rights in a conversation about women’s voting rights back in 1905. You can say I am changing the subject of you want. But I am not. I don’t bring the issue up under articles about the lacrosse team, or June Bug for that matter. But when the subject is human rights, people need to be confronted if they think they are going to take someone’s rights away while champion the rights of some more socially acceptable rights. Folks at UVA, or in the state house for that matter, who think they are supporters of human rights while thwarting Geneva, the UDHR, and Nuremberg are talking out their ass.
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Sean,
You’re right, I’m not active. Does that make me “less” pro-life? Does my opinion not count because I don’t stand outside abortion clinics and scream at terrified teenagers? If so, again, you’re why so many have such a negative opinion of the pro-life movement.
I read the comments you get, and they’re quite clear that the people haven’t actually read what you write. That tells me something. You comment on the most controversial artricles, so of course they’re the most commented on. No proof there. Read what people write, and how few actually even bother responding to your arguments. More often than not, such an approach doesn’t mean that people CAN’T respond, it’s the people haven’t read enough of what you’ve written to know what to respond to, just that you turn them off.
I can believe that you’re a sane, rational person when meeting in person, since you can’t just spew your idiocy uninterrupted. But if you took a minute to actually READ what your buddy Bob Marshall actually writes, and compare it to what you write, you’d notice the difference immediately. Marshall is thoughtful, explanatory, and only inflammatory when necessary. You’re nothing but inflammatory, with links to more inflammatoriness.
Why do I “obsess” with you? Maybe I’m just tired of people like you who may draw one or two people into the cause, but ensure that far more people are turned off by a cause that, again, while I may not be an active participant in it, still means a great deal to me.
I’d rather a baby’s life actually be saved, than that I get some kathartic feeling while shouting about it and being ignored.
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Bob,
Yes, that makes you less pro life than those of us who are were active. I’ve never personally protested at a clinic, but there are others I know who have. You can say what you want about those folks, but they have earned the respect of every person in my group, and I dare say that, like us, they have succeeded way more than you ever imagined by, well, doing nothing..
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/mar/10032202.html
Different groups have a different focus. Ours here and now is directly primarily at the UVA Health System, who very quietly have performed over 2500 elective abortions in house. They have never advertised this procedure anywhere. Instead, word is spread through the “Peer Health Educators,” an organization set up at the same time as Elson and the Teen Center to – essentially – complete with Planned Parenthood for the large and very lucrative steroid and abortion sales in town. Me and another group member were up in the hospital a few weeks back, guided in by a nurse manager there, having a look at how they have revamped the exit process for the girls just having had an abortion. They do them in the same area as they deliver babies. We’ve considered street protests, but backed off knowing that there is no way we could do that without impeding other people’s (and ambulance!) access to the hospital. The killing room is above the ER, so protesting on the street nearest that room would block the ER entrance. Not going to do that.
Now then, you can make up whatever kind of fantasy statistics you want about who reads what and all that. Just your mind getting away from you. If you look at the “Interpreting Abortion” thread, you’ll see at least two people have come on there and supported/thanked me. Not sure who they are, but they are there.
We’ve already saved two lives, and the clinic protesters claim thousands. Hack at us all you want. I don’t care. You probably would have been just as incensed when civil rights protesters took over lunch counters, bus stations, and blocked roads.
I’m challenging a state senator to explain why he killed a bill in committee that was scientific in nature. You are not.
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If those in the LBGT community care so much about human rights being violated by the state, they should speak out against babies being murdered by institutions that accept state funding. But I doubt that will ever happen.
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