OK to Discriminate Against Gays in VA

The message from Virginia's governor and Attorney General this past week is that it is Ok to discriminate against gays and lesbians in Virginia.

VA Attorney General Orders Colleges to Stop Protecting Gays

In a letter sent to the state's public colleges and universities and obtained by the Washington Post, Cuccinelli declared that the schools don't have the authority to uphold bans on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation when the state itself has no such ban.

"It is my advice that the law and public policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibit a college or university from including 'sexual orientation,' 'gender identity,' 'gender expression,' or like classification, as a protected class within its non-discrimination policy, absent specific authorization from the General Assembly," the letter stated.

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell last month reversed an eight-year-old executive order that banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in Virginia. The governor argued that only the state's General Assembly had the power to institute such a policy in the first place.

A bill to ban discrimination against gays was introduced in Virginia's legislature this year, but a Republican-led state House committee killed the bill this week.