Voters in Virginia elected Republican Robert McDonnell governor by a sweeping margin.  In 1989, as a 34-year old graduate student at ultra-conservative Regent University, McDonnell wrote a thesis that, among other things, talks about how in his view, “cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators” are detrimental to family. McDonnell told the Washington Post that his views have since changed; that said, in his campaign ad response to the thesis, he didn’t say that.

Talking Points Memo has the full run-down of the thesis.  Other views of McDonnell’s in the thesis (quoted from the TPM post):

• “Soon after calling the Supreme Court’s decision on contraceptives ‘illogical,’ McDonnell blasts ‘the perverted notion of liberty that each individual should be able to live out his sexual life in any way he chooses without interference from the state.’”
• “McDonnell then says that government has no authority to redefine family relationships, because the family predates civil government — it was created by God in the Garden of Eden.”
• “McDonnell goes on to refer to family as a ‘God-ordained government,’ and asserts that there’s no need for government policy to treat ‘alternative lifestyle living arrangements’ equally to the traditional family.”
• “He blasts efforts to ‘redefine family by allowing special rights,’ not just for ‘homosexuals,’ but for ‘single-parent unwed mothers.’”
• “He attacks the phenomenon of women working outside the home, writing that the proliferation in the day care industry was caused by the desire of some women ‘to break their perceived stereotypical role bonds and seek workplace equality and individual self-actualization.’”
• “McDonnell also comes across as a zealous, ideologically driven opponent of the New Deal and the welfare state, utterly unreconciled to the principle of using government to provide a safety net for the neediest — calling it a socialist plot to destroy the family.”

McDonnell says his views have changed, yet in comments about a 2003  judicial appointment he: ” indicated that Askew’s [the judicial nominee] sexual conduct was relevant, telling one newspaper that ‘certain homosexual conduct’ could disqualify a person from being a judge because it violates the state’s crimes against nature law.” When the Post asked him about this, he said “It is 100 percent irrelevant in this race.”

Queerty reports that the new Virginia Lt. Governor is just as bigoted.  What’s really scary (as if McDonnell’s views weren’t enough) is that Republicans are now touting him as a potential 2012 presidential candidate.

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