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VIRGINIA GAZETTE

 

 

 

 

WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA

Your government at work

 

 

 

January 8, 2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You’ll be delighted to know that your Virginia General Assembly is on top of the Macedonian crisis and will soon enact legislation to correct the appallingly discriminatory state in which Macedonians find themselves in the Balkans. With the passage of HJ 552 almost assured, the Virginia legislature will insist that Macedonians living throughout the Balkans have the right to speak their own language, practice their own customs and be granted all the civil and human rights guaranteed under international law. 

 

It’s about time. This landmark legislation will undoubtedly enhance the stature of our legislature even more than the coup they pulled last year when they censured Janet Jackson for going boobal.

 

Nor is the world-shaking effect of this bill being lost on the Albanians and Bulgarians, who even now, in retaliation, are debating legislation that will insure that Hispanics in Virginia be allowed to speak their own language and practice their customs without interference from the English-is-the-official-language crowd. Henceforth, all public schools must offer classes in both Spanish and English, and all official records will be kept bilingually. Cinco de Mayo will become an official Virginia holiday. 

 

What all this means is that our legislative loons have left their holiday nests and are  flapping their way back to their fishing hole in Richmond. Since July they’ve been vomiting up nonsensically idiotic bills like the one above to clutter an agenda that should be devoted to, among other things, the crises in transportation, higher education and mental health. 

 

But that won’t happen, or at least it won’t happen as long as we have legislators whose primary political objectives are to wax trivially stupid and play to what they conceive to be their constituents’ putative social agendas. 

 

As a result, they will spend valuable time debating bills that make it a misdemeanor to take a picture of Uncle Al if he doesn’t want his picture taken (called “camera harassment”) and that demean prostitutes unfortunate enough to wind up in the poky by insisting that their DNA be analyzed. HJ 568 will bring the legislature to its feet in commendation of the Charlottesville High School boys’ soccer team.

 

Complementing our continuing divinization of former president Ronald Reagan, HB 1656 would have us designate a dinky state bypass route in Prince William County “Ronald Wilson Reagan Memorial Highway.”

 

 In a gentle nod to the crisis in education, HB 1573 will outlaw in schools any apparel or style of dress that might prompt school violence. This is obviously another swipe at Janet Jackson, who’s already in a swoon as a result of our last legislative blast. 

 

In addition, HB1585 would prohibit principals from altering student grades for course work without the consent of the relevant teacher.

 

Who knew? Just when we thought that teachers’ grades were sacrosanct, we find that Principal Solmeister has been noodling with Johnny’s history grades without the approval of instructor Failemall. Is nothing sacred?

 

Quite predictably, the axis of asininity in charge of obliterating gays in Virginia will be just as hard at work in this session as it was last year. Topping the list of things to do to protect the quaking foundations of heterosexual marriage is a proposal for – guess what? – a new license plate! For all the supporters of traditional marriage, this one will say: “Traditional Marriage.” This innovative message will be surrounded by two interlocking gold wedding bands over a red heart. Obviously gays wouldn’t be caught dead exchanging gold wedding bands, and certainly gay hearts are of quite a different color from straight red hearts.

 

If the astounding logic of all that sends you into a tizzy, you’ll love HJ 528, proposed by Dels. John Cosgrove (R-78th), Richard Black (R-32nd) and Robert Marshall (R-13th). This would amend the state Constitution to define marriage as existing only between a man and a woman. In addition, it would insist that nothing in the Constitution be interpreted to require the Commonwealth to recognize or permit same-sex marriages or civil unions.  

 

That Marshall’s loopily labeled “Marriage Affirmation Act” of last year left gays in Virginia with barely the right to exist seems not to have deterred this trichinous trio from jumping on the bandwagon of bigotry that brought the same amendment to other state ballots in the last election. It would be ironic indeed if the state of Virginia were caught dragging its heels in the promulgation of discriminatory dicta. Kudos to these three legislative leviathans for preserving her integrity in that regard. 

 

Finally, and not to be outdone by Marshall & Co.’s race to radicalism, Del. Charles Carrico Sr. (R-5th) will propose yet another constitutional amendment to permit the exercise of religious expression, including prayer and religious beliefs, on public property, including schools. Apparently this will settle the hash of all those Jeffersonians who shoved a shiv into Rick and Mick for their back door pizza bash. Look for the “Twin Towers” to be back next year, openly and legally proselytizing at school assemblies.

 

With all of these exquisite concoctions on their plates, our legislators are going to find little time to discuss issues of minimal importance, such as a third crossing or the Medicaid crunch. But they will solve that Macedonian crisis, and who could ask for more than that?     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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