Don't ask Bob Marshall

lewleadbeater.com

notes from the edge

Home

Email Me

				THE
Column Archive				VIRGINIA GAZETTE
				WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
Don’t ask Bob Marshall				January 8, 2011

On Jan. 12, the General Assembly will lumber back up to Richmond for yet another session of legislative laundering and, at times, half-witted havoc.

While we all wait to see how Gov. Bob McDonnell and his assembled cohorts handle pressing issues, such as transportation, funds for education and the privatization of the booze business, there are some early hints that the social Harpies on the right are gearing up for much more serious business.

Leading that pack is Del. Robert Marshall (R-Prince William). Marshall has already declared that his primary thrusts this year will involve the rights of the unborn and the state’s right to legalize homophobia.

Angered by the recent decision on the federal level to end the discriminatory Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, Marshall has decreed that the state should retaliate by disallowing the service of those who are openly gay in the Virginia National Guard.

Despite the fact that even McDonnell, whose ambitions obviously reach beyond Virginia once he leaves the governor’s office, thinks that Marshall’s meanderings are inappropriate, if not politically embarrassing, Marshall will probably press on.

Disdaining McDonnell’s contention that the National Guard should replicate what transpires in the federal armed forces, Marshall is now claiming that the Guard is in effect what the Virginia constitution calls a “militia,” which is strictly under state control. What his Procrustean logic seems to overlook is the fact that militias in all states have been supplanted by National Guard units, since militias were originally meant to be formed only for specific state emergencies.

Nor does Marshall seem to recall that National Guard units may indeed be appropriated by the federal government in times of national emergencies or hostilities abroad.

Nevertheless, relying solely on his any-port-in-a-storm mentality, Marshall will now declare the Guard a state militia and thus grant power to the state to bar the service of gays. As far as Marshall is concerned, those who are openly gay are simply non-persons when it comes to Virginia law and hence ineligible to serve.

But lest you think that Marshall doesn’t know what a real person is, consider the following.

In his preamble to HB 1440, which would declare all unborn children to be “persons,” Marshall writes: “Whereas the Constitution of Virginia provides that all men are equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity, namely the enjoyment of life and liberty and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety, now, therefore be it enacted by the state of Virginia…”

The bill then goes on to declare that the life of each human being begins at conception and that all the rights and privileges granted by the state to those already born should apply to the unborn “at every stage of development.”

Furthermore, the term “unborn child” includes all unborn children or “offspring of human beings” from the moment of conception until birth.

The question then arises as to what, in the mind of Marshall, constitutes the difference between gays and unborn children when it comes to inherent rights or the enjoyment of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and safety.

Why is it that unborn future militia members apparently have more rights than gays to be happy, safe and serve their country and state?

We can only guess that for Marshall, since gays were at one time unborn and hence apparently eligible for all the rights of the unborn, their births were evidently from sources other than human beings. That’s the only disqualifier in his legislation. Gays, therefore, must be either alien beings or sired by zebras and hence ineligible for the rights of the offspring of humans.

But it’s best when dealing with a mental construct such as Marshall’s to avoid logic and just go with the flow. Or pray that the intellect of a Chimera is soon transformed into one worthy of a human offspring.