Ethics

Virginia AG: Colleges Can't Ban Anti-Gay Discrimination

By Ed Brayton

And the religious right takeover of Virginia continues. The Virginia Attorney General has written a letter to all the state's public colleges and universities telling them that they cannot have rules prohibiting discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II has urged the state's public colleges and universities to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, arguing in a letter sent to each school that their boards of visitors had no legal authority to adopt such statements.

In his most aggressive initiative on conservative social issues since taking office in January, Cuccinelli (R) wrote in the letter sent Thursday that only the General Assembly can extend legal protections to gay state employees, students and others -- a move the legislature has repeatedly declined to take as recently as this week.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on March 08, 2010 (boomark / email).