The worst attorney general in the world has to be Virginia’s Ken Cuccinelli, who has been on a crusade to promote a far right conservative social agenda.
The Washington Post wrote that Cuccinelli has been ”the most overtly partisan Attorney General in Virginia history” and ”has waged war on Obamacare, harassed climate-change scientists, sanctioned discrimination against homosexuals and embraced Arizona’s (now mostly gutted) immigration law.” Cuccinelli waged an all-out assault on academic freedom by using state resources to sue a University of Virginia Professor who was researching global warming, and bullied members on the State Board of Health into shutting down abortion clinics by threatening to sue them.
But I’m hoping now that he has finally crossed the line with an effort to control people’s sex lives.
Although most people think sodomy laws have been unconstitutional since the Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli would like to explain why — in his view — that’s not so.
What’s more, he wants the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to agree with him and uphold the constitutionality of Virginia’s sodomy law — which makes anal and oral sex between people of any sex a crime — in the process.
Yes. Ken Cuccinelli has a platform of outlawing blow jobs. Anyone campaigning against him in the future needs to remind the Virginia electorate of that.
Thank goodness I live in Maryland where blowjobs from anyone are legal.
I find the term “sodomy law” quite confusing in its use in the English language. Hm, Wiki sez:
Immoral and unnatural as per who? Jesus? Some pastor? Or does it not matter as long as it pertains to anything that LGBT people may get up to in the sack? Which obviously has to be immoral by default somehow.
Cuccinelli seems quite obsessed with those sodomy laws. Makes you wonder…
Poor guy. He’s sexually challenged. 1st act on the road of recovery is admission. “I have never had a blowjob”. Then the healing can begin. His health insurance might cover it.
If we outlaw blowjobs, only outlaws will have blowjobs!
Anal sex doesn’t sodomize people! People sodomize people!
Those who trade cunnilingus for morality have neither!
But seriously: this is horrifying and stupid. This country honestly frightens me.
I’m not sure how this would play out in court, considering Cuccinelli is so uncomfortable around lady parts that he had Virtus’s breast covered in his version of the state seal.
“Can you describe the defendants behavior to the court, without using any reference to any non-family friendly verbiage?”
And he’s a serious contender in this year’s gubernatorial election.
Capitol of the Confederacy, don’t you know. Also, Virginia is the state in the Loving case, which wasn’t that far back. So perhaps not too surprising that a state official there is opposing other forms of marriage equality.
He doesn’t strike me as a cunning linguist.
I doubt blowguns are much of a problem. Firearms made for sole purpose of killing people are part of the problem. Silly government madman.
(Reads the article again…)
Oh. Blowjobs. Not guns. Really silly madman from the government… (Him. not me. Reality-based, and silly and mad for being so, I may be, but I ain’t from no government…)
A great protest would be people lining up to turn themselves in outside his office.
No one, I disagree. I bet the only moral bjs are his bjs.
What I would like to see is for some organization with some media clout to calculate the actual cost to taxpayers of putting into effect whatever stupid law people like this propose – how many man-hours of time devoted to it, how much taxpayer expense for the attorneys and courts and for jail, etc. That makes it really easy to combat – the opposition can say that they don’t think it’s worth (x) amount of your hard-earned dollars to peer into people’s bedrooms. If there’s one thing that trumps people’s religion, it’s their pocketbooks.
You can have my blowjobs when your pry them from my cold, dead lips.
In what world is that not an instant death blow to any political career? Is it that people don’t know this or are they actually demented enough to support it? Is this one of those things where people somehow don’t realize it might also affect them?
Honestly, I find this bizarre in the extreme. If ever there was an issue that could get by-partisan support, it would be laughing this guy out of town. Literally, how does this guy walk around without people pointing at him and laughing? How is he not the biggest joke on two legs?
I always wonder about these sort of things: Do the lawmakers or other touts (preachers, etc) for this sort of law think that by making it illegal, people will magically stop?
Given how often they turn out to be hypocrites, do they think that making it illegal will cause THEM to magically stop? Like, “Oh, I do not have the strength to stop going to rentboys. Let’s make it illegal and that extra incentive will convince me to stay at home reading my Bible instead.”
It’s almost as if the only reason they do things or don’t is because some Authority dictates it…
Religion: Destroying the development of moral compasses since the dawn of humankind.
In a world heavily influenced by Puritanical anti-sex propaganda, which makes people too ashamed to admit in public that they enjoy blow jobs, much less protest a law against them.
That’s which world.
I’m dissapointed, PZ. Making anal and oral sex between people of any sex a crime means just outlawing blow jobs? What about all those juicy, warm, wet, pink, pretty, tasty vaginas that enjoy a cunnilingus just as much?
You have struck the nail squarely on the thumb. They don’t call them Authoritarian followers for nothing.
Texas’ sodomy law got overturned at the Supreme Court level a while ago….
Fun viewing: Molly Ivins in an excerpt from the DILDO DIARIES (documentary focusing on the time during which having six or more dildos made one a felon in Texas), but also including Texas House debate on sodomy which has to be seen to be believed:
I would hazard that those who back him see how good these laws would be if applied to other people. His backers have the perfectly legal and moral blow jobs. The other people are the ones who are the sexual deviants that must be stopped by the small conservative government.
Virginia is more of a purple state than a red state. However, the Governorship and the legislature are controlled by right-wing Republicans. This is what happens when some of we-the-people are lax about voting, and when progressive forces do not field and then fight for excellent candidates.
Also, please note, if you ever wondered how Republicans would govern if they were in charge everywhere, just take a look at the examples of Virginia and North Carolina.
glodson, you mean it’s like abortion hypocrisy?
“The only moral blowjob is mine.”
@glodson
Much like abortions and wellfare cheats and I’m sure many, many other subjects.
Yes, the Republican party is all in favor of minimal government. Except with regards to my penis and what I do with it. Then they want overwhelming supervisory authority.
Fuck them. Though not literally because then they would want Rick Perry to supervise.
Here’s what I don’t get:
How the heck do the media not ask him if he’s ever received or given oral sex? He can try to say that that’s private, but as soon as he does, you just say, “No, sir. You’ve said that private oral sex deserves to be punished with jail. The law you cite is a [felony/misdemeanor of whatever punishment]. This requires a public trial discussing the possibility of oral sex having occurred. People who participated in or witnessed oral sex will be asked – under penalty of perjury – about their own experiences with oral sex.
If you support questioning people publicly before their peers about oral sex, how is this a private issue? And if you have had oral sex, how can you believe yourself to be qualified to hold the office of Attorney General, as you are a criminal?
Are you a criminal, Mr Attorney General? Do you deserve to be in prison?”
I think reporters are much more likely to ask things like, “How do you propose to investigate this?” which, while putting him on the spot, isn’t nearly as hard hitting as saying, “Look, we all know you didn’t get through 40+ years of your life without ever once rubbing mouthy bits against sexy bits in some combination or other. Tell us why we shouldn’t lock you up right now.”
LykeX, you have been answered very well by frog, SallyStrange, and glodson. I can’t top their humor or clarity, but I’d like to add this: The world has already seen anti-sodomy laws, as well as racial segregation. It works by turning a blind eye towards offenses committed by the privileged group, and selective enforcement of the law against the targeted groups. The fact that this is hypocritical, against the priciples they have sworn to uphold, and blatantly illegal escapes their notice.
@ Mellow Monkey and LykeX
Pretty much. I imagine that his backers are used to this kind of hypocrisy and double think. And probably wanting to enforce their religion, but horrified by the thought of another enforcing their religion.
Crip Dyke:
Well, that wouldn’t be civil and above all else, we have to be civil. Never mind that we’re talking about legislating the private sexy time of consenting adults; what matters here is that we show this public official the proper respect. Confronting him with the reality of what he’s proposing would just be rude. Asking him the same questions that will be asked of others, if he gets his way, that’s crossing the line.
glodson:
Yes, but see, when other people do it, they’re enforcing the wrong religion, so that’s bad. We’re enforcing the right religion, so that’s OK.
I would love to see someone propose something these religious sycophants would love, but then back it with the Quaran. Their heads would explode.
Mother Jones magazine formally requested a statement from Cuccinelli confirming or denying that he has ever engaged in any of the practices he seeks to outlaw as ‘sodomy’. So far, no reply. Surprise?
there ya go, ivarhusa!
Only, the reporter needs to do it at a press conference while the cameras are rolling.
I suspect it’s a lot like drug laws. Yeah, sure technically it’s illegal for everyone, but only the “wrong kind of people” ever get charged for it.
Nobody playing devil’s advocate on this one?
Antiochus: No, because this concerns the possibility of sex for the devil’s advocate, and ain’t none of those bastards going to argue that they shouldn’t get all the sex they want, how they want it. *snort* It’s almost like they only play devil’s advocate on issues they think won’t affect them.
I’d love to see people turning themselves in to the representative’s office, describing in graphic detail their offenses against this law.
Exactly. Playing the devil’s advocate when we are talking about rape culture is perfectly civil and rational. But when we are talking about the important and serious issue of blow jobs, playing devil’s advocate is unbecoming and entirely uncivil. We must protect the respect of the genteel blow job.
Quite right, quite right.
We must fight on this vital personal freedom. We will fight it on the internet, we will fight with reluctant women, and write nasty comments on feminist blogs and try to get more blowjobs with the scarcity argument.
First they came for gays, and I did not speak up. Then they came for the obvious perverts, and I did not stand up, but by god they’d better stay out of my bedroom.
/sarcasm
(Weird aspie/OCD thought on the title of this post):
“So you have to be the SAME race but DIFFERENT sex to be a couple in Virginia. Can’t they make up their mind whether they want people to be the same with those similar to them or they want to do the ‘opposites attract’ thing?” There’s a serious amount of micromanaging going on here. Don’t the legislators in VA have something better to do with their time?
he will handle the questions about his sex life like any other politician he will just lie when it suits him and use the question as a starting point to bloviate for 15 minutes on whatever he wants to.
uncle frogy
@Mouthyb
you’re forgetting:
I think I’m getting weepy.
I think Virginians should invent a new slang tern, “Crossing the Potomac”, to refer to all forms of oral sex.
I wonder how many companies who require their employees to undergo regular drug tests would also be willing to require polygraph tests?
“Have you ever given or received oral sex?”
“Erm, yes, when I was a teenager, but I didn’t inhale…”
And Cuccinelli’s gay lover gets revealed on CNN in 3,….2,….,1…..
I fear Ken has unwittingly told the world what Mrs Cuccinelli’s bedroom limits are. I love watching conservatives self harming in public.
@moarscienceplz
I get it. I do. I get the point you’re trying to make. But if *all* raging homophobes are really closeted queers, that means that straight people aren’t capable of raging homophobia. Although not intended to be, the logical implication is that the victims of heterosexism are to blame for the worst of heterosexism.
Let’s not imply that – not least ‘cuz it ain’t true.
On the other hand, we have good sociological data that most married straight couples engage in oral sex [let’s leave aside anal sex for now, as the numbers aren’t as overwhelming], in fact, frequently enough that more than 50% (way more, actually) have done so in the last 12 months.
This means that there is literally probable cause to arrest Cuccinelli and his wife for violation of this statute. There is probably also legal probable cause – or at least it can probably be spun that way – since this is in principle no different than comparing electricity usage patterns against the characteristics of people who are known to have grown pot in their homes. We are simply comparing legal status of relationship and matching that up against people known to have oral sex. The legal questions are undoubtedly more complex, but I’m not equipped to analyze them as the only criminal I know is a) little, and b) Canadian, but you could make a good case, as a prosecutor.
Thus it could be quite easy to justify arresting the two of them, separating them, and then engaging in standard police interrogation. This would of course include informing his wife that they know from emails describing bedroom activities Ken sent to his best friends that the two of them have engaged in oral sex, and that they can be sent to jail for (1 week, month, etc.) for each offense, and that their 7 kids will be living alone for quite some time when both go to jail. She spills the beans if, as is absurdly likely, it is true and seeks a plea deal. Ken is confronted with the info, and says something incriminating. That is used to convict him (not his wife’s testimony because while any negotiations to engage in oral sex are not privileged, the issues would be complicated and tread very near to inadmissibility).
Or, of course, you can put a tap on their phones after releasing them ROR. As soon as one of them makes a call explaining to a friend why they were arrested, bam! we’ve got him.
None of this would be illegal under conventional procedural safeguards. Sociologically, it seems that the 58-75% number for “in the past 12 months” is low b/c that includes persons who haven’t had a partner of any kind: it was not restricted to married couples. Plus, the statute of limitation is longer than that. Plus, not everyone surveyed is going to want to admit to behavior that their church would find a grave sin.
Thus, I think that there’s a good argument to be made for the arrest, right now, of Ken Cuccinelli, and the conduct of an investigation using standard practices (it is, for instance, perfectly acceptable to deceive suspects about the existence or nature of any evidence against them), and, ultimately for a prison term should good evidence turn up.
This is what he thinks is a good idea – I hope it happens to him first.
I had to look up what an attorney-general exactly is and does in America. Turns out is quite a powerful and important official, and they are even elected. Scary.
It does strike me as one of those rules that will be selectively applied to get to anyone that the prosecutor just doesn’t like. That’s the first rule of a totalitarian society; construct the laws so that everyone is a criminal; then ignore the law for anyone who plays balls. That ensures a high level of compliance.
LykeX@13:
I suspect it’s for the same reason that a lot of people think official state religions are a good thing. It would only be bad for ‘other people’. So the other religions would be unwelcome, with a nod and a wink amongst all the ‘good xians’. Then of course, all the Protestant religions would get together to get rid of the Catholics. Then the presbyterians….well, you get the idea. So in this case, only that couple down the road, you know the black woman and white man, or the two women the next block over…they’ll be fined or arrested, but good ol’ Cletus and Martha, well, they’re good to go. Until of course, a baptist gets into office and decides that it really does apply to everyone.
There are times when I really wish I could see these people get what they want in the form of unintended consequences, but there’s just always too much collateral damage.
And what the others have already said, as well. I’m always late to the party…
But we know the intent of the law. And we already know how it would be enforced.
And we all know that if it is allowed, it isn’t the straight men and women at risk of prosecution by the state.
Lynna, OM
(nifty adds: and Kansas and Oklahoma and North Dakota and Arkansas – who have all passed some whoopwimminzasses legislation in the past couple of months)
People should be plastering this message all over their social media platforms.
Exactly – noone worries about how it will affect themselves if they are straight white people because (cough cough wink wink) these laws aren’t targeting them.
(growls)
fastlane
So many good points.
It’s frustrating and at times feels almost futile (or it once felt futile – now, not as much, thanks to the godless activists!), but the only thing to do is to keep writing and talking and tweeting and FBing about this and putting it out there for the oblivious who think they’re in the golden club to wake up and see that there is no golden club – eventually power concentrates until just about everyone is squeezed out of the favored positions.
Somehow the only appropriate response I can think of is “blow me”
dianne:
Of course they do. That’s exactly the point.
The Teabaggers all got themselves elected a few years ago on economic platforms– cut taxes, cut spending, get rid of government “waste”, etc. Low taxes will magically fill holes in states’ budgets, you know! As soon as it became clear that either 1) their budgets wouldn’t pass (in states like NY) or 2) their budgets would destroy the economy on the state level, most of them backed off. Oh, they’re still trying to pass ridiculous budgets, but most of them are being way more quiet about it.
They backed off to focus on “culture war” issues: abortion, gay rights, and now contraception and blowies. They needed to divert attention from the fact that they are REALLY SHITTY lawmakers and fire up their base at the same time.
I don’t even think this is a case of “the only moral buttsex is my buttsex”, I think this is a cynical ploy to keep the evangelicals heading to the polls.
I should add that I fully believe that the right-wing voters believe that the only moral buttsex is the buttsex that they’re engaged in†, but I don’t necessarily think that’s the case with the Virginia’s AG.
†Because otherwise they’d have to use contraception and that’s probably more sinful than a little sweet sweet ass lovin’.
re 14:
[emphasis added]
Whatever is left unsaid is, by default, permitted. “They” will do whatever they are not told to not do. Rules, rules, rules, all about what NOT to do, everything else must be allowed, doncha know, or so those little ‘ankle biters’ will think. We must teach them how “not to play the game” [- Ian Anderson]. That’s what the Bible (that holy book) is all about, “Don’t do this, that or the other thing.” Never says what to do, only what NOT to do. Rules define liberty, no rules is just anarchy and EVIL, doncha know(?).
Seems appropriate.
Crip Dyke: Indeed. I weep for the unknown blowjob and shall visit its tomb.
It is ironic that this bill has the support of the GOP. What happened to supporting the job creators?
Garfunkel & Oates
@glodson
#58
It does support jobs! Jobs for righteous voyeurs!
LykeX @46
most appropriate misplaced “s” ever
These right wing control freak turd blossoms are too crazy to comprehend. No oral sex? Completely crazy.
Our prime minister, back in the 70s, Pierre Trudeau, had it right when he said “the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation”.
There’s no politician who is going to stop people from having oral sex. Maybe that guy just needs to do a little give and take with his wife (supposing he has one) to find out what he’s missing. Wanker.
Is anyone organizing a suck-in on the lawn of the state capitol?
I was going to use the legal bans on assorted internet-based “everyone does it” behaviors as an example, but yeah: this. No one’s going to be arresting the “good Christian husband and wife” for oral or anal. It’ll be all about Teh Ghay and other undesireables.
Has Bill Clinton come out against this prposed law yet?
I guess the idiot went to an xtian law-school, where they didn’t bother to mention Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967)…
Or Lawrence v Texas (2003)
Because they have blue laws?