August 14, 2013 6:11 AM

Today's Brave Defender of (not so very) Small Government: Ken Cuccinelli

Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia’s attorney general, has garnered more than his share of national attention over the years, with high-profile legal crusades against global warming researchers, Obamacare, and abortion clinics. But it’s his recent war on consensual sodomy in the commonwealth that has raised the most eyebrows as the gubernatorial candidate has made the issue a centerpiece of the final months of his campaign…. The law is plainly unconstitutional—according to both a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision and a federal appeals court—and giggling about the attorney general’s creepy preoccupation with Virginians’ consensual oral sex makes for an easy comic target. But that focus obscures the real—even original—sin undergirding Cucinelli’s latest legal push: It’s a call for judges to read statutes to mean what they don’t say; a call for outright judicial activism, for freewheeling judicial interpretation—qualities legal thinkers on the right usually deplore.

That Ken Cuccinelli is even being mentioned by Very Serious People as a legitimate contender to become Governor of Virginia speaks volumes about the sorry state of our (and certainly Virginia’s) public political discourse. I suppose you’d have to live in the If You Ain’t Got Jesus You Ain’t S—t State to fully understand how a judgmental, intolerant, self-righteous hypocrite such as “The Cooch” could have garnered so much support. That probably says as much about the epic low standards and hypocrisy of Conservative Virginians as it does about Cuccinelli.

Then again, Cuccinelli is the perfect example of the hypocrisy and double standards extant in today’s GOP. His campaign- and his party- has become more about a rigid, reflexive, unthinking view of the world than about anything having to do with making America a better place to live. His campaign to criminalize sodomy (And let’s call it what it, OK? Oral and anal sex. The Cooch wants to ban oral and anal- non-procreative- sex.) is a laughable departure from the just plain wrong to the intrusive, immoral, and creepy. Cuccinelli’s flavor of Christianity has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ and everything to do with the goal of creating a world in which a narrow, fear-based, fun-hating world view is the law of the land. To call The Cooch and his followers mean-spirited hypocrites might be accurate, but it doesn’t begin to do justice to their twisted logic, double standards, and desire to replace the Constitution with the Bible. Can you say “dominionist theocracy?”

Once you stop laughing at them, you really should be frightened about the possibilities- if for no other reason than they’re very real. The fact that what Cuccinelli’s pushing is blatantly unconstiutional is no problem for a politician and a party that’s suffered an acrimonious divorce from the fact- and reality-based world.

It has long been the mantra of Republican politicians that judges—especially elitist federal judges—should never, ever legislate from the bench. Now consider Attorney General Cuccinelli’s approach to Virginia’s sodomy law. The anti-sodomy statute, 18.2-361, applies to “any person” that “carnally knows any male or female person by the anus or by or with the mouth.” Yes. It bans all oral and anal sex. And for those who partake, the legal consequence is a felony conviction, possible imprisonment, and lifelong status as a sex offender.

Yes, you read that correctly. Cuccinelli is part of a Far Right-wing ideological school that demands that government get off the collective backs of Americans. Yet he sees no contradiction with the idea of taking that small government and installing it in our bedrooms. Were he to get his way, what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own homes would no longer be their business; it would be the concern of the State. Any sex of a non-procreative nature would be verboten, presumably with punishments ranging from fines to prison time.

How a “small government” Conservative could justify such a hypocritical double standard is something I can’t begin to wrap my inadequate IQ around. It’s going to take someone with an intellect far nimbler than my own to be able to parse that one out. Unless the rationale truly is that “small government” is well and good until the American Taliban wants to enforce it’s narrow moral standards. In that case, it ceases to be intrusive government and becomes Godly, righteous government.

Truly, it would seem that The Cooch is the politician for whom The Handmaid’s Tale was written.

Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 Supreme Court decision about Texas’ anti-sodomy statute, held that states can’t regulate private consensual sexual activity amongst adults. The court of appeals’ position, that state anti-sodomy laws simply do not survive post-Lawrence, is the same position taken by attorneys general in other states, including the prior Virginia attorney general. That should end it, right?

A reasonable person might think that, but if anyone has ever accused Cuccinelli of being reasonable, I’m not aware of it. The Supreme Court and the Constitution be damned; if Cuccinelli believes that his path to power lies in regulating (and criminalizing) private sexual activity between consenting adults, then that’s the path he’ll take. I find it interesting that in an era with so many other pressing political issues in need of leadership and resolution, The Cooch is demanding the ability to make certain everyone’s “doing it” in the missionary position (and ONLY because procreation, not recreation, is the goal).

Now that’s some sort of insightful, inspiring leadership, eh?

Or not.

Somewhere along the line, Republicans evidently decided that they couldn’t win on the strength of their ideas…because they frankly have none…so they made the decision to create and focus on a culture war. Instead of trying to figure out how to make America a better place, they determined that the way to seize power was to divide and conquer and by appealing to the fear, ignorance, and prejudice of the lowest common denominator. As much as I hesitate to use the world “evil” to describe what Republicans are doing, I can come up with no other word more accurate to the challenge.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on August 14, 2013 6:11 AM.

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