Virginia GOP: Doing Their Best to Repel Jewish Voters

Jason Berger — May 22, 2013 – 9:04 am | Domestic Policy | Environment | Foreign Policy | Health Care | Republicans | Women's Issues Comments (0) Add a comment

On Saturday, the Virginia Republican Party picked Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, Bishop E.W. Jackson, and Senator Mark Obenshain as their nominees for Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General, respectively. All three have made outrageous and offensive statements on issues including women’s rights, rights for gays and lesbians, the Affordable Care Act, and climate change.

This Tea Party ticket does not align with the views of most Jewish voters. Here are some highlights from Cuccinelli’s, Jackson’s, and Obenshain’s records:

On Equal Rights for Gays and Lesbians:

Cuccinelli on homosexuality: “Homosexual acts are wrong. They’re intrinsically wrong.”

Jackson also said: “New York’s decision to allow same-sex people to marry is another government sledgehammer used to shatter our Judeo-Christian culture. As a black American, proud of our civil rights progress, I speak for most black citizens when I say it is offensive that sexual preference has been elevated to the equivalent of a racial characteristic such as skin color. The two could not be more dissimilar. One is an outward characteristic. The other is sexual behavior. It denigrates the illustrious struggle for equality for Americans of African descent to associate us with the homosexual demand that society accept and approve their behavior.”

On Women’s Rights:

Cuccinelli compared a woman’s right to choose with the battle to end slavery: “Our experience as a country has demonstrated that on one issue just after another. Start right at the beginning, slavery. Today, abortion. You know, history has shown us what the right position was.”

Cuccinelli was also so vehemently opposed to the Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate that he said going to jail would be an effective way to protest the clause. He said, “My local bishop said he told a group, ‘Well, you know, I told a group I’m ready to go to jail.’ And I told him, ‘Bishop ... you need to go to jail.”

Jackson equated Planned Parenthood with the Ku Klux Klan: “The Democrat Party has created an unholy alliance between certain so-called civil rights leaders and Planned Parenthood, which has killed unborn black babies by the tens of millions. Planned Parenthood has been far more lethal to black lives than the KKK ever was. And the Democrat Party and the black civil rights allies are partners in this genocide.”

Obenshain tried to criminalize miscarriages: In 2009, Obenshain introduced a bill that would have required women to report a miscarriage within 24 hours to the police or risk going to jail for a full year. Under the bill, “When a fetal death occurs without medical attendance upon the mother at or after the delivery or abortion, the mother or someone acting on her behalf shall, within 24 hours, report the fetal death, location of the remains, and identity of the mother to the local or state police or sheriff’s department of the city or county where the fetal death occurred ... Any person violating the provisions of this subsection shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.”

On Obamacare:

Cuccinelli tried to sue the Federal Government over the Affordable Care Act: Five minutes after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, Cuccinelli walked straight to Richmond’s federal courthouse to sue the Federal Government. Cuccinelli said in a press conference four months after filing the lawsuit, “It is not essentially about health care, it’s about liberty. If the government prevails in this suit and Congress can force Americans to buy health insurance in the name of regulating commerce, then congress will have been granted a virtually unlimited power to order you to buy anything.”

On Climate Change:

Cuccinelli started an anti-climate change witch hunt in Virginia: In 2010, Cuccinelli demanded the University of Virginia turn over documents that former Professor Michael Man had used to receive grant money for global warming research. Cuccinelli said the request was part of an “open inquiry” into whether there were “knowing inconsistencies” as Mann was seeking taxpayer dollars. Three months later, Albemarle County Circuit Court Judge Paul M. Peatross Jr. ruled that Cuccinelli can investigate fraud in potential university grants, but he said that Cuccinelli’s subpoena failed to state a real “reason to believe” that Mann had committed fraud.

On President Obama’s Citizenship and Background:

Cuccinelli previously embraced the birther movement: In 2009, a conservative radio host asked Cuccinelli if he could legally challenge President Obama’s citizenship. He responded, “Well only if there is a conflict where we are suing the federal government for a law they’ve passed. So it’s possible. [...] Well, that’s a good question. Not one I’ve thought a lot about because it hasn’t been part of my campaign. Someone is going to have to come forward with nailed down testimony that he was born in place B, wherever that is. You know, the speculation is Kenya. And that doesn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility.” Cuccinelli has since walked backed his comments by saying, “I absolutely believe that President Obama was born in the United States. I don’t buy into the claims that he wasn’t. On the recording, I was asked a hypothetical legal question, and I gave a hypothetical legal answer in response.”

Jackson on President Obama’s foreign policy: “Obama clearly has Muslim sensibilities. He sees the world and Israel from a Muslim perspective. His construct of ‘The Muslim World’ is unique in modern diplomacy. It is said that only The Muslim Brotherhood and other radical elements of the religion use that concept. It is a call to unify Muslims around the world. It is rather odd to hear an American President use it. In doing so he reveals more about his thinking than he intends. The dramatic policy reversal of joining the unrelentingly ant-Semitic, anti-Israel and pro-Islamic UN Human Rights Council is in keeping with the President’s truest - albeit undeclared - sensibilities.”

After Jackson’s nomination, current Republican Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling spoke out against Jackson’s comments by telling Politico, “These kinds of comments are simply not appropriate, especially not from someone who wants to be a standard bearer for our party and hold the second highest elected office in our state. They feed the image of extremism, and that’s not where the Republican Party needs to be.”

 

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