PhoboQuotable - Ken Cuccinelli

"Homosexual acts are intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law-based country it's appropriate to have policies that reflect that. They don't comport with natural law. I happen to think that it represents (to put it politely; I need my thesaurus to be polite) behavior that is not healthy to an individual and in aggregate is not healthy to society." - Virginia GOP state Senator and Attorney General candidate Ken Cuccinelli, who was called out as a bigot today in a strongly-worded editorial by the Washington Post.

Putting aside what Mr. Cuccinelli has to say about homosexuals when he's not trying so hard to be polite, let's call his comments what they are: bigotry. Bigotry is as pernicious today, applied to homosexuals, as it was a century ago or less, when immigrants and minorities were its main victims. And it is just as familiar. Appeals to "natural law" and "intrinsic" rights and wrongs were the usual cliches deployed to justify the old-time religion of hatred then directed at African Americans, Jews, Italians, Irish and other immigrants.

It is especially alarming that this ugly nonsense is coming from Mr. Cuccinelli, who, if he becomes the attorney general of Virginia -- a job that combines aspects of chief government lawyer and top cop -- would be in a position to act on it. He says he would not ask job applicants to the 166-lawyer office about their sexuality, and his spokesman says openly gay employees would not be "rooted out" and fired. But, since he would be empowered to issue opinions on such questions, how would he regard such firings generally in state government, in which a 110,000-strong workforce undoubtedly includes thousands of homosexuals?