In Virginia, judges are elected by the legislative branch, unlike most of our states (Only Virginia and South Carolina do it this way). And the General Assembly, as it is called there, just got through a process where a judicial candidate, Tracy Thorne-Begland, was denied election because he is gay and living with a partner. One particular Republican delegate, Robert G. Marshall, led the opposition to Thorne-Begland, and 31 Republicans altogether opposed him, which was enough to kill the nomination.
This kind of bigotry saddens me, and makes me ashamed to be a member of the same party. However, the other party stands for all sorts of other things I cannot abide, so you will not see me joining the Democrats. I am a Republican because I oppose the Democrats' economic policies, whether it's fealty to organized labor or socialistic approaches to business, and because I oppose most Democrats' foreign policy positions. What the connection is between Republican economic and foreign-policy positions, which I favor, and this sort of homophobic bigotry I cannot fathom. And in fact there are conservative Republicans, from Dick Cheney to Michael Barone (columnist in the National Review and Washington Examiner), who support gay marriage, so it is still possible to detach these issues from each other. But how can the party shed this anti-gay image? Somehow it must. The Republican party is, on other issues, the party of individual freedom. It cannot be the party of coercion in this instance.
This kind of bigotry saddens me, and makes me ashamed to be a member of the same party. However, the other party stands for all sorts of other things I cannot abide, so you will not see me joining the Democrats. I am a Republican because I oppose the Democrats' economic policies, whether it's fealty to organized labor or socialistic approaches to business, and because I oppose most Democrats' foreign policy positions. What the connection is between Republican economic and foreign-policy positions, which I favor, and this sort of homophobic bigotry I cannot fathom. And in fact there are conservative Republicans, from Dick Cheney to Michael Barone (columnist in the National Review and Washington Examiner), who support gay marriage, so it is still possible to detach these issues from each other. But how can the party shed this anti-gay image? Somehow it must. The Republican party is, on other issues, the party of individual freedom. It cannot be the party of coercion in this instance.
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