The "no religious test" clause of the United States Constitution is found in Article VI, section 3, and states that:"...no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." - Wikipedia
Hatred is not a Virginia Value, and Virgil Goode has proven himself unworthy of public office.
I don't care if the right-wing Republican bloggers at the ODBA are destroying themselves and eating their own.
I don't care that reactionary blogger Shaun Kenney took a break from his usual partisan name calling to support Virginia's best Democratic blogger against the extremists who usually follow the Kenney lead.
I don't care that hard-nosed research by Richmond Democrat, JC Wilmore, exposed the lies of a 19-year old zealot who was attacking Waldo while pretending to be a practicing attorney.
I don't care that the entire right-wing of the VA Political blogsphere doesn't understand the meaning of words like "Common Decency" or "Personal Property" and decided to declare Jihad against Waldo Jaquith for deleting the RSS feed of one egregious extremist from his blog aggregator.
I don't care the Waldo cut off some idiot's feed.
I don't care that some idiot thought that pictures of beheaded Americans somehow supported his attempt to fig leaf Virgil Goode's unabashed, unapologetic bigotry, and bald-faced unAmericanism.
None of that matters.
What I do care about, and what absolutely should be of grave concern to every single Virginian, is that a swath of our Commonwealth larger than the state of New Jersey is represented in Congress by a bigot named Virgil Goode and that just overjoys a cowardly contingent of the Virginia Republican Party.
Virgil Goode set fire to the US Constitution last month and he deserves to be removed from office. None of the rest of this VA Blogging idiocy amounts to anything more than a distraction from a very real assault against the First Amendment and Article VI, section 3.
Virginia is better than this. America is better than this. I'm embarrassed and insulted that Virgil Goode portends to represent the viewpoint of real Virginia including the home of the true father of American religious freedom Thomas Jefferson.
I am working on something right now in fact.
You are right to point out how Goode's words desecrate Virginia's great contribution to global freedom: the Statute for Religious Freedom, which Jefferson drafted in 1779 (I think) and Madison succeeded in getting passed in 1786.
Jefferson was absolutely clear that the statute was meant to apply without exception to every kind of religious belief (or unbelief)--specifically including Muslims.
As he wrote in 1821 in his manuscript Autobiography:
The bill for establishing religious freedom . . . I had drawn in all the latitude of reason & right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that it's protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word "Jesus Christ," so that it should read "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion" the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of it's protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination [emphasis added].
It's sorely misguided, unAmerican, and insulting to every American who ever struggled, fought, worked, lived and died under the stars and stripes.
Whatever moral highground these bigots may claim, their protection of Virgil Goode or any position as ignorant as this is beneath contempt and unworthy of blessings inherent in the American dream.
Since Goode has been temporarily unavailable for our input, many have been looking into what recourse(s) we might have. Virginia is not one of the 18 states allowing for a recall election, but has something even more difficult to accomplish, a recall trial. Don't see that happening.
Censure when he shows up for work this week may be a possibility, but frankly I consider that it will be no more than a slap on the wrist, if anything.
Perhaps indictment is still a possibility.....
I would "hate" to think we had to wait until 2008 to show our displeasure. But we will if we must. We will not forget.
Although a lot of good has been accomplished this past year, with the passage of the Hate Amendment it has become harder for some of us to remember that most Virginians really do not include hatred and bigotry among their values. Perhaps it will work its way out through the courts, but I am not sure how something can be "un-constitutional" when it is now part of our state constitution. Yet another thing I will have to educate myself about. Maybe Teacherken might have some suggestions on that as well as the problem known as Virgil.
Lord help him if I catch him on the mall.....I might even have to break Charlottesville's unwritten rule on celebs and have a word or two. :)
Whoever it is we should find them soon so they can call all the religious freedom advocates in the country while the story's fresh :)
Careful about Grisham though, I don't know if a novelist with no electoral experience can win federal office in VA, especially not against a popular bigot of an incumbent. hm...
Come on now, keep an old lady from having to tackle a grown man on the downtown mall. :)
Constitutionality of DOMA has never been established. Not clear how Congress can legislatively change the Constitution, but given this SCOTUS who knows
2) problem known as Virgil has only two known solutions
-- first, defeat him at the ballot box
-- have him expelled from the House by a vote of the House (takes a simple majority - House and Senate each sole determiner of qualifications of members. However, remember that there is some limit on that, because of expulsion of Adam Clayton Powell being overturned by SCOTUS.
short answer -- you want to get rid of Goode, have a strong candidate run an effective campaign in 2008.
Or get Bush to appoint him to something that does not require Senate confirmation (which he would not get)
or get someone in private sector to offer him a lucrative job.
Unless he is convicted, he's there until January 3, 2009.
I had a dog that wouldn't quit killing chickens - he forgot the punishment everytime he saw a bird. I cured him by tying a fresh kill around his neck, where it hung until it rotted off. ...Might work for the Virginia Republican Party.
This guy and the George Allen types are making Virginia nortorious all over the world for xenophobia. The Truro and Falls Churches aren't helping either. Its emabarrassing to see them referenced in foreign newspapers and websites as examples of American intolerance.
Someone asked if Goode could be recalled. Perhaps he should be expelled from Congress, by his fellow congressmen, for failure to uphold the U.S. Constitution he is supposed to be defending. Ok, maybe a bit dramatic there, but Goode truly has failed to practice what is so clearly defined in our Constitution. And that's something that no American should allow of it's chosen leaders.
