Virginia seems to be challenging Texas for which state’s elected officials pander the most to the far right. In his first three months in office, for example, Virginia’s Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell rescinded an order barring state employment discrimination against gay people and issued a proclamation honoring the Confederacy that failed to mention slavery, the primary reason for southern secession. The state’s Republican attorney general even moved to prevent public colleges and universities from barring employment discrimination against gay people.
Now that same attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, has approved a revised state seal that covers up a woman’s exposed breast. Nico Pitney at Huffington Post reports that Cuccinelli recently distributed to his staff pins with a new seal — one that covers the exposed left breast of “Virtus,” the goddess of virtue. As Pitney notes, this episode echoes actions taken by President Bush’s attorney general, John Ashcroft, to place drapes over the Spirit of Justice statue at the Department of Justice.
Texas officials, of course, aren’t slouches when it comes to pandering to the far right. For example, Gov. Rick Perry promoted a state constitutional amendment barring gay marriage (which was already illegal in Texas) and has flirted with extremists who want Texas to secede. The state’s attorney general, Greg Abbott, has even tried to bar a gay couple married in another state from getting divorced in Texas. (Strange, yes? He so opposes gay marriage that he refuses to let a gay couple end their marriage legally in Texas.)
See the Virginia photos after the jump.
Fornication regulation is the foundation for governmental intervention, of course. It fits Parkinson’s Law of Inverse Relevance as the ways, means, motives, and actions thereto are easily understood. condemned, corroded, eroded, and pontificated thereon instead of trivial matters related to national and international commerce, trade, and warfare.
Make no mistake of the seriousness of fornication regulation as the world struggles with outraged Islamic fundies who feel directly threatened by women unveiled and outside the house. So serious the threat of unbridled sexuality, that the faithful fundie wears high explosive undies.
While the Founders and Fathers of this great republic knew that an unbundled breast was symbolic of motherhood and nurturer of the republic. Lady Justics with sword and scales is often shown with a breast exposed as is Marianne of France carrying musket in one hand, and Tricolor in the other. Normally one breast is shown as would a woman to breast feed her young. If find it amusing to for Right wing fundies to bash Supermom.
As for slavery, if the South wanted to keep slavery, then staying in the Union was the wisest course for the Constitution could not have been amended to abolish slavery with almost half the states were slave holding states. It takes three quarters of the state legislatures to ratify an amendment, and the fifteen former slave states then in the Union could have stopped such amendments indefinitely.
The Emancipation Proclamation was a world class propagandan coup by Lincoln. Slavery was not abolished in the Union as there were Union slave states still in the Union (Maryland for example). It was abolished in the Confederacy and in those counties “then in rebellion”. After the Union conquered slave states and parts of states, the old Confederate politicians went bent on resurrecting their power structure. The Fourteenth Amendment barred those Confederates who held office before the war, and wiped out their IOU’s and bonds.
Absent Lee’s abortive invasion of Maryland in September 1862 that met with misfortune at Antietam, gave Lincoln the “victory” he needed to publish the Emancipation Proclamation. Had Antietam gone the other way, the Emancipation Proclamation would not had the clout that it did. More importantly, both Great Britain and France were ready to intervene in our Civil War that week, had it not been for the Proclamation. After, since both Great Britain and France had abolished slavery recently, it was no longer politically correct a al 1862.
Slavery was a contentious and devisive issue, but the South did not secede to save it, nor did the North (Union) fight to abolish it, at least not until the issue became overtaken by events with the slaves running off ‘n all.
It is very hard for Yankees to understand the depth of feeling that Southerners feel about their military heritage. The Spanish-American War brought Southern military units with battle streamers from the Civil War back under Union colors. An old Confederate cavalry General … Fighting Joe Wheeler commanded US troops in Cuba. The 4th of July was not celebrated in the South until the Spanish-American War. It was time to mend.
It still is.
I feel sure pubescent boys all over Virginia are using their state seal as a masturbation aid. It’s a good thing the forces of Christian fundiisim are intervening to protect the male youth of Virginia. With this outrageous seal properly cloaked, their youth will finally be free from the peril presented by unclothed women. Fruit……………………………………………….!!!!!!!
Virginia has both Falwell’s Liberty University and Pat Robertson’s Regent University. While there are enclaves of near-sanity, Virginia is relatively safe territory for Bible Belters.
Gordon Fowkes: Slavery was a contentious and devisive issue, but the South did not secede to save it,
From The Texas Ordinance of Secession, February 1, 1861:
Sigh… I could have sworn I put a “/” there.
ABB3W: Good point. Bad decision on the part of Texas as it ceded the authority to block Abolition through Constitutional amendment to abolishonists.
What was of immediate effect was protectionism of Northern industry through tariffs against the machinery the South needed for the cotton industry. As the North had considerable more representation in the House, only the balance of power in the Senate was within reach of sufficient Southern control of excessive tariffs as they saw it. The admission of new states as slave or free was critical to maintaining the balance. This was the immediate threat.
In those days cotton was as critical to British hegemony as is oil is today for the West. King Cotton, the South believed would bring European assistance to maintain the source of supply. The possibility of French and British intervention was a real possibility until Antietam and the Proclamation Emancipation. After that, Egyptian cotton became competitive and King Cotton was king no more.
Four of the fifteen slave states remained with the Union, often with the advice and consent of Union firepower, included Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. The Emancipation Proclamation did not abolish slavery in those states nor in the parts of the other eleven slave states that were under Federal military control. This included parts of Louisisna and Tennessee.
Lincoln’s opponents ranged from those opposing abolition and those who thought Lincoln wasn’t moving fast tenough. The fomer included George McClellan who built the Army of the Potomac, and the latter by John C Fremont, of California fame.
Don’t worry abou the “/.”
I have lived down south all of my life, but that is the first excerpt I have ever seen from a writ of secession by any Confederate state, including my own. In fact, history buff that I am, it never even occurred to me that I might like to see a copy of one of these documents. If the others are anything like this, then it is clear to me that the American soul back then was eaten up by the same thing that it is now—the love of money. No amount of human suffering was too great—as long as you could make a solid dollar out of it.
The thing that amazes me, and it really does, is that the Christian fundamentalists seem to have no trouble at all with the vast expanse of human economic and social sin in the United States today that exists entirely outside the realm of their concern. They are as tone-deaf to it as their ancestors were down south in 1861. Maybe the oil spill in the Guif of Mexico is a ajudgement from God. Pat Robertson has weighed in on this one—yet. Maybe it is because of gay marriage or abortion. Then again, it might be because God is angry at the Christian fundamentalists for their tone deafness to all the human pain and suffering that they have become so adept at ignoring.
By the way folks:
Our good friend the “Correct Reverend” Dr. Bruce Prescott (Baptist) has had some especially good personal posts over at his blog in recent days. As you all know, Bruce is usually right on the money because there’s no rest for the Christian fundamentalist and far right wing wicked when he posts. I encourage you to check it out at the following link:
http://mainstreambaptist.blogspot.com/
OMG – It’s a female breast! Kids are getting corrupted and will go to hell!
Right Eric. Most of them sucked on two of them for months, so it is not as if they have never seen one. That goes for the girls too, so I guess that means they are gay in the bizarro fruitcake world.
The most sinister part of this whole affair is that Virtus was apparently represented as either female or as male by the Romans. Perhaps Cuccinelli needs to be more worried about Teh Gay Agenda subverting his state than he does a (smallish) boob causing its ruin. (I wonder if there’s a Hermaphrodite Agenda?)
Really, what the hell?? The Seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia has been in use for 234 years, and suddenly it’s too naughty for public consumption? Huh?