If I'd started a job with the Commonwealth of Virginia on February 1, 2010, I would have had five days without worrying about the possibility of being fired based on my sexual orientation. But on February 5, 2010, the new Governor quietly rescinded the protections offered state workers based on sexual orientation.
I hope every GLBT person who supported McDonnell, and works for the state understands fully what this will mean. I am sure that the number of Christianists will rise dramatically throughout the various Commonwealth agencies, and they will wield the power afforded them.
There remain too many people who do not realize that in the majority of the of the states across the country, a person can be fired solely for being gay and have no recourse whatsoever. McDonnell has just brought that standard to the government of Virginia, and he should be criticized mercilessly for it.
I was born and raised (primarily) in Virginia, and my home state has just regressed. And what makes me more sad is the sense that the majority of Virginians will not even care.
1 comment:
Teflon Bob is many things, but none of them qualifies as surprising.
The Washington Post did a piece on his 1989 thesis where he all but champions turning the clock back, to where women don't work outside the home, and contraceptives aren't made available to the unmarried.
Now, Governor Bob McDonnell says his views have changed since then, but one has to question, by how much have they changed?
His positions of yore occupy some far flung real estate. So his repeal of protection to homosexuals in the workplace doesn't seem all that astonishing, or much of a move away from his former beliefs.
What may pass for a changed man, is the fact it took him days, and not hours, to deny homosexuals workplace protection.
I'm just sayin'...
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