Marshall: GOP loyalty oath requirement sends ‘wrong message’
Del. Bob Marshall is urging Virginia’s GOP leaders to ask the State Board of Elections to rescind its ruling that voters, before taking part in the March 6 Republican presidential primary, must pledge in writing that they intend to support the party’s White House nominee in the Nov. 6 general election.
“Ironically, requiring a loyalty oath will bar even former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich from voting in the primary because he already has said unequivocally that he will not vote for Ron Paul for president if he’s the Republican nominee,” Marshall (R., 13th District) noted Thursday.
“Virginia’s Republican leadership wants to mandate a loyalty oath when Virginia’s Republican officials are in court fighting the Obamacare mandate? This sends the wrong message.” Read more
Delegate introduces bills to require reporting in abuse cases
State Del. Bob Marshall has introduced bills adding coaches or athletic directors of private sports teams (HB 3) and institutions of higher learning (HB 4) to the list of those who are required to report child sexual abuse, and other similar abuse, to local authorities.
“The indifference and inaction of coaches at the University of Pennsylvania in the face of observed sexual abuse of young boys over a period of year is disgusting beyond description. Most people were shocked to learn that the Pennsylvania law was unclear on the duty imposed on coaches in such situations. Pennsylvania is toughening its state laws, and Virginia needs to do the same,” Marshall said.
The scandal that has brought this issue to light, actually reported at Penn State, involved a former prominent assistant football coach whose alleged crimes appear to have been covered up or at the least swept under the rug by university officials.
“These bills are needed because victims of sexual abuse, especially young boys, tend to keep such abuse to themselves,” Marshall said.
“If coaches with whom we entrust our children refuse to do the right thing on their own by attempting to stop, or at least report, abuse when they see it, then Virginia needs to impose that duty on them. Silence and inaction in the face of such evil is morally unacceptable and ought to be legally unacceptable.” Marshall said.
Groups say UVa. must balance transparency and academic freedom in considering request for professor’s records
Twelve organizations concerned with free speech and the integrity of scientific inquiry on college campuses today asked the University of Virginia to protect academic freedom when it answers a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by the American Tradition Institute Environmental Law Center and Robert Marshall, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
The FOIA request, which seeks emails and other communications related to UVA Professor Michael Mann’s research on global warming, resembles the controversial civil investigative demand, or CID, issued last year by Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli under the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act. Concerned that complying with the CID would chill academic freedom, UVA took the matter to Albemarle County Circuit Court, which quashed the CID.
“As citizens, we have an abiding interest in protecting both academic freedom and open government,” said ACLU of Virginia Executive Director, “but sometimes these two principles come in conflict with each other. For most government workings, we should know just about everything that happens, but when FOIA inquiries run the risk of chilling the free exchange of ideas, we need to carve out some narrow exceptions.”
In their letter, the twelve signatories note that the Virginia FOIA already exempts certain records related to scientific research that have “not been publicly released, published, copyrighted or patented.” The letter asks the university to be mindful of that exemption and academic freedom concerns when responding to the FOIA request.
The ACLU of Virginia, AAUP, UCS and the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression recently teamed up to file an amicus brief in the Cuccinelli/CID case, siding with the University of Virginia. After the Albemarle County Court ruled in UVA’s favor, the attorney general appealed the case to the Virginia Supreme Court, which has not yet ruled.
A copy of today’s letter is available at www.acluva.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/20110414LettertoUVAMannFOIA.pdf
Signatories to the letter are: ACLU of Virginia, Alliance for Justice, American Association of University Professors, Center for Inquiry, Climate Science Watch, Council of Environmental Deans and Directors, National Coalition Against Censorship, National Council for Science and the Environment, People For the American Way, The Ornithological Council, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Robert M. O’Neil, Director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression.
Bob Marshall: Maintain DADT in Virginia
Losing 32 percent of Marine and 21 percent of Army combat troops in battle would devastate our nation. That is how many soldiers said they will definitely leave the US military service early if “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” were repealed. Right before Christmas the “lame duck” Congress ended 232 years of military policy and 6000 years of religious and moral training by repealing DADT.
Allowing open homosexuals in our Armed Forces will require “reprogramming” of troops to erase the memory of prior military and religious tradition. This monumental change was tacked onto a small business technology bill before the new Congress took office.
I introduced HB 2474 to maintain DADT for Virginia’s National Guard to stand with the majority of our troops who oppose repeal (Page 49, Pentagon Study.) because our U.S. Constitution empowers Virginia to establish eligibility criteria for our state guard. Every member of the House of Delegates Rules Committee voted against HB 2474 (except for Delegates Joe Johnson and Lacey Putney) despite excellent testimony by a retired Brigadier General, two Colonels and a constitutional law expert.
Delegates cited Attorney General Cuccinelli’s warrantless speculation that federal funds might be cut. But Congressional Republicans who overwhelmingly opposed DADT repeal would hardly force compliance. And now they are a majority in the House of Representatives. Virginia already has different enlistment criteria from federal Armed Forces and hasn’t lost funds.
Repeal of DADT raises questions about unit cohesion, religious freedom, sexual privacy, battlefield blood transfusions (FDA does not allow men who have sex with men to donate blood), homosexual housing/benefits and attrition possibly threatening reinstatement of the draft.
Military readiness and effectiveness must be our concern, not social experimentation in wartime. Please ask your State delegate to support my budget amendment to prohibit state funds from being used to implement repeal of DADT in Virginia’s National Guard.
Bob Marshall serves in the Virginia House of Delegates.
The AFP on WREL: Report blasts Virginia health care
Editor Chris Graham joins WREL’s “Online with Jim Bresnahan” to talk Virginia news and politics.
The segment begins with a discussion of the report of a state advisory council that this week told Gov. Bob McDonnell that the performance of the health-care industry in Virginia is mediocre. What steps can the administration and the General Assembly take in this tough budget environment to try to achieve reform in health care in Virginia? Chris tries to give some insight into what the next steps might be.
We wrap the week with a review of a proposal from Republican lawmaker Bob Marshall to bar gays and lesbians from serving in the Virginia National Guard in the wake of the repeal of the federal don’t ask, don’t tell policy. Does the effort have a chance of becoming the law of the Commonwealth?
Governor, Republican group react to proposed state action countering DADT
Gov. Bob McDonnell wants to see the Virginia National Guard adhere to the same rules as the Department of Defense with respect to its treatment of gays and lesbians serving in the nation’s military.
McDonnell addressed the issue on his monthly call-in show on WTOP in response to questions that have arisen regarding legislation that Northern Virginia Republican Bob Marshall plans to introduce in the Virginia General Assembly next month that would ban gays and lesbians from openly serving in the Guard.
“Whatever the final guidelines of the Department of Defense, I would expect the National Guard bureau in Virginia to adhere to those rules so we would have one set of rules for the entire military,” said McDonnell, noting his personal exceptions to the legislation passed in Congress last week that ends the controversial don’t ask, don’t tell policy that had banned openly gay men and women from serving in the armed forces.
Marshall, in an interview with a Washington, D.C., TV station Monday night said he is introducing the legislation because of fears of the spread of sexually transmitted diseases from gay troops and the distraction that gay soldiers would have on straight men serving in the military.
“It’s a distraction when I’m on the battlefield and have to concentrate on the enemy 600 yards away and I’m worried about this guy whose got eyes on me,” Marshall said in the interview.
The Log Cabin Republican Group of Virginia, a gay and lesbian civil-rights advocacy group, condemned the Marshall proposal and Marshall’s “extreme and hateful beliefs.”
“With all the important problems facing our country and our commonwealth, Del. Marshall has chosen anti-gay prejudice to help gin up his base to promote his political career,” said David Lampo, the vice president of the Virginia Log Cabin Republicans. “His action is akin to the Southern bigots and officials who attacked President Truman when he ended the Jim Crow laws that governed our military, including the same weak and pathetic warnings about the ill effects he predicts our nation will suffer from ending the policy of government discrimination on the basis of service members’ sexual orientation.”
Story by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at freepress2@ntelos.net.
Chris Graham: Thanks, Bob, for letting us know
Posted by afp on June 3, 2011 · 1 Comment
“I do not believe that a celebration of ‘gay pride’ has anything to do with the mission of the Federal Reserve under the Federal Reserve Act passed by Congress,” the Republican state legislator wrote in a letter to the president of the bank that his office shared with the news media on Thursday.
“This is a celebration of a behavior that is still a class six felony in Virginia. How can the American people trust the judgement of the Federal Reserve as an institution when its spokesperson celebrates an attack on public morals?” Marshall asked.
Which raises the question – Virginia still has a law on the books regarding what goes on in the private bedrooms of consenting adult partners here in our fair Commonwealth?
Another question – wonder if we still have miscegenation laws active in the state code?
But anyway, thanks, Bob, for letting us know. Looks like we have some code-cleaning to do.
Filed under Blogs · Tagged with bob marshall, civil rights, federal reserve, federal reserve richmond, gay pride, gay rights, lgbt rights