The Attorney General of the state of Virginia, Kenneth Cuccinelli, has warned state colleges, via written letter, that they are overstepping their boundaries by including sexual orientation into their anti-discrimination policies. He claims the General Assembly of Virginia has the word on what is or is not discriminatory, and since the state of Virginia, as recently as last week, "a subcommittee killed legislation that would have banned job discrimination against gay state employees".
He went on to urge colleges which included sexual orientation in their anti-discrimination rules to retract and amend their regulations to conform to state law. The chairman of the democratic party has responded that colleges should be able to set policies "without meddling from Ken Cuccinelli" and the ACLU issued a statement saying that colleges are bound by decisions of the US Supreme Court to not discriminate based on sexual orientation.
This demonstrates one of two paths conservatives have begun to embrace in America. Both are born of recent developments in civil rights legislation. Since LGBT equal rights issues have faced such massive defeat and devastation in recent months, it’s had a splintered effect. Some conservatives, realizing they’re winning, albeit on a morally treacherous ledge, have taken to the "gentler" approach, in which they proclaim gay people are not to be hated, or reviled, but accepted, although on separate terms. LGBT American are able to have rights, but the rights they designate, nothing more. And certainly no rights which carry the same label or equity as the rights they enjoy throughout the supposed "land of the free and the home of the brave".
A second conservative segment, easily more dangerous, see LGBT failures as an opportunity to ramp things up. From an alarming rise in hate crimes to government officials working to enforce, through twisted interpretations of equality, the daily discrimination of LGBT Americans, one of the results of our civil rights losses is an empowerment of our opposition. It’s clear that without discrimination, these people have no one to devour and restrict. Without it, they are less. Without it, they are equal. And they don’t want to be equal.
They want the throne. Virginia is another example.
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