Jody Wagner
I sat in a car at a gas station last weekend, waiting for a friend to pay the gas bill, when I saw an old lady try to cross a four-lane road in front of me. It never once occurred to me to get out of that car to help that woman cross the road. It took a full week for me to realize what I did – I neglected to perform a simple act of kindness toward another human.
Why did I not get out of that car and help that woman cross the road?
I’m not saying that Jody Wagner is an old lady who needs help crossing the road into the Lt. Governor’s position this election week. I’m saying that I seem to have lost all sense of decency lately. I was reminded of this failing over this past weekend, when it became clear that two men vying for power in this state do not support getting out of the car to help their gay neighbors. In fact, both men are actively against getting out of the anti-gay vehicle altogether.
Bill Bolling’s stance on gay rights was magnified this past weekend through Ken Cucinelli, the Republican who has his bid in for Virginia’s Attorney General’s spot for same election. Cucinelli told The Virginian Pilot, “My view is that homosexual acts…are wrong. They’re intrinsically wrong. And I think in a natural law based country it’s appropriate to have policies that reflect that.”
Although Wagner called on her opponent, Bill Bolling, to denounce Cucinelli’s remarks, that request was like asking a dog to bite his master’s hand. Bolling, I had forgotten, had issued a statement on the 2006 Marriage Amendment on October 25, 2006, stating:
This common sense amendment will simply give constitutional protection to the statutory laws banning same sex marriage and same sex unions that have been in place in Virginia for years. Without this amendment these laws could be struck down at any moment by an activist judge who thinks it is OK for a man to marry and man and a woman to marry a woman. That has happened in other states, and it could happen in Virginia.
Marriage is a sacred institution, and it also is misused as a governmental institution to deny rights to those who cannot marry by law. How did the government get involved in marriage? Those rights, which include the ability to visit a loved one in the hospital, the ability to share in personal property and the right to immunity from spousal testimony in court are just three among 700 rights that gay individuals are denied and that married heterosexual couples enjoy across this country.
I’m not advocating gay marriage, and gay marriage has no place in this election. I am advocating Civil Rights, and that issue has a place everywhere and at any time in Virginia and across this nation. I am advocating fair treatment and a stance against bigotry, no matter a person’s aversion to same-sex couples and no matter the political stand that a man might take in his bid for political office.
While I still believe that Jody Wagner is not a strong candidate for the Lt. Governor’s office, I also believe that I do not want to see a continuation of an anti-gay sentiment.
I know I have support in my beliefs. Many people voiced opposition to the 2006 Virginia Marriage Amendment, which not only barred same-sex marriage in the Commonwealth but also declared that the state “shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage.” The amendment effectively outlawed civil unions with that statement. The bill passed, however, and Virginia maintained her status quo on denying her gay couples – her residents and voters – the right to enjoy full freedoms as American citizens, even in a simple civil union that has nothing to do with the church and everything to do with the government.
One year later, on October 27, 2007, Bolling stated to The Virginia Pilot, “It becomes a public issue when they try to obtain some public approval for that [gay lifestyle]. I think the lifestyle is wrong and I think the lifestyle is harmful, so I don’t want to do something that is condoning, as an elected official, of that lifestyle.”
Bolling still doesn’t want to help gays cross the road to equal rights, and I have to wonder why he fears the gay lifestyle (as being “harmful”). If you voted against that “marriage” (and civil union) amendment three years ago, now is your chance to get out of the car and help your gay neighbors. You may not know those neighbors, and you may experience aversion to their lifestyles. In fact, you may not believe that they deserve rights. But, as citizens, they do. They are citizens who deserve the same rights as you in your position as a citizen.
I may never meet that elderly woman again, nor have the chance to help her cross a road. That is my loss as a decent human and as a person who understands equality. That loss aside, you have a chance to vote for Jody Wagner on November 3 in your bid for a representative who does not harbor nor advocate bigotry toward gay Virginians.
Do the right thing. Vote against bigotry.
