Welcome to your new Republican Party, whose motto is “Last One Off The Sinking Ship is a Drowned Rat.” Just yesterday, we saw that one Utah GOP-er proposed saving his fiscally strapped state by lopping off that pesky 12th year of secondary education. But wait! There’s MORE! If you thought GOP Scrooginess was just for the young and defenseless – think again! Today I learned courtesy of the tireless Talking Points Memo that Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has rescinded protection for GLBT people via executive order. This reverses the executive order that former governor Tim Kaine signed in 2006 that put such protections in place.

McDonnell’s order was signed five days ago, with no fanfare. The anti-discrimination order used to mention sexual orientation; now, it doesn’t. McDonnell noticed the closet was open, so he slammed the door, nailed it shut, and set the house on fire.

HRC Backstory has a map of the states that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. There are 18 – 12 by law, 6 by executive order.

For the GOP, that’s 18 too many.

(H/t to EileenLeft on Twitter; Gay Politics for the HRC Backstory link)

Uncategorized bob mcdonnell, gay, gay rights, glbt, virginia

Lord of Lords, but stories like this make it hard to be nice. Via Joe My God, we see that the Florida Family Policy Council has sunk to an all-time low. The FFPC included the leftmost photo in a press release blasting a court decision granting a lesbian couple the right to adopt a child. Except that that’s not the couple involved in the case. The cuter-than-fuck couple on the right are Vanessa Alenier and Melanie Leon, the plaintiffs and proud new parents.

There’s a double shame here. The first round of shame goes to the FFPC, of course, for taking the first photo that popped up when they Google Image searched for “ugly lesbians,” and using it in their smear campaign. But that’s also heartening. As I pointed out a few days ago, the anti-equality crowd has nothing left except anger. Scott Maxwell, who originally wrote about this case for the Orlando Sentinel, put it righteously:

The rationale for preventing balanced, loving parents from adopting children — when the state has a backlog of needy children, no less — is hard to justify in concept. And when you actually look at the specifics of human lives involved in real cases — the way Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesia did last month — it’s darn near impossible. In considering the case, Judge Sampedro-Iglesia heard from family members, a child psychologist, the boy’s preschool administrator, a social worker and the state-appointed Guardian ad Litem. All of them, the judge wrote in her order, “testified in support of the adoption as being in the best interest of the child.”

The state did not offer a single witness to rebut that claim.

How does the FFPC explain itself? On its blog, it refers to the “mistaken photograph” as an “admittedly boneheaded mistake,” and it offers to apologize “if you or someone else felt it was warranted.” “If”?! This rant makes FFPC out to be the victimized party, a poor political action committee bludgeoned by a reporter on a “slow news days.” Apparently aware that this wouldn’t fly with the majority of non-hateful Americans, FPCC President John Sternberger eventually issued an apology for his organization’s “mistake.”

Mistake my ass. The facts say otherwise. How does a photo from a “different adoption story” get substituted for two women who look like they stepped out of a corporate board meeting? Sternberger and crew are too chickenshit to admit that they got caught spraypainting dirty words on the side of the school.

The second round of shame goes to some of the Internet commenters on Joe My God and elsewhere, who are heaping insults upon the first couple. Really, folks, save the schoolyard shit for the haters.

Uncategorized florida, florida family policy counsel, gay, gay rights, glbt, parenting