George,

In case anyone thinks that Bob McDonnell might make a good governor. Think again. THIS is the mentality we will be stuck with for 4 years. Downright scarey. I figure he will drag us--especially women's rights--back to the 1950's. I imagine the majority of Virginians have no idea that he is this conservative, considering he is trying to portray himself as a moderate.

After, in 1965, the Supreme Court ruled that Connecticut couldn't deny the right to contraception to married couples, it ruled in 1972 that Massachusetts could not deny the right to unmarried couples. Bob McDonnell, in a 93-page Master's Thesis for Pat Robertson's Regent University, objected to the 1972 ruling.

He described as "illogical" a 1972 Supreme Court decision legalizing the use of contraception by unmarried couples.

This was consistent with McDonnell's overall hostility to female autonomy.

His 1989 thesis -- "The Republican Party's Vision for the Family: The Compelling Issue of The Decade" -- was on the subject he wanted to explore at Regent: the link between Christianity and U.S. law. The document was written to fulfill the requirements of the two degrees he was seeking at Regent, a master of arts in public policy and a juris doctor in law.

The thesis wasn't so much a case against government as a blueprint to change what he saw as a liberal model into one that actively promoted conservative, faith-based principles through tax policy, the public schools, welfare reform and other avenues.

"Leaders must correct the conventional folklore about the separation of church and state," he wrote. "Historically, the religious liberty guarantees of the First Amendment were intended to prevent government encroachment upon the free church, not eliminate the impact of religion on society."

He argued for covenant marriage, a legally distinct type of marriage intended to make it more difficult to obtain a divorce. He advocated character education programs in public schools to teach "traditional Judeo-Christian values" and other principles that he thought many youths were not learning in their homes. He called for less government encroachment on parental authority, for example, redefining child abuse to "exclude parental spanking." He lamented the "purging of religious influence" from public schools. And he criticized federal tax credits for child care expenditures because they encouraged women to enter the workforce.

"Further expenditures would be used to subsidize a dynamic new trend of working women and feminists that is ultimately detrimental to the family by entrenching status-quo of nonparental primary nurture of children," he wrote.

He went on to say feminism is among the "real enemies of the traditional family."

What I find really problematic with McDonnell's youthful views is that they so closely resembles the views that Bertrand Russell found so objectionable in 1927. A woman that is locked into a marriage and forbidden from using birth control (and unable to legally decline sexual advances from her husband) is a total victim of circumstance. Even if a doctor tells her that she may not survive another childbirth, so has no legal way of avoiding becoming pregnant or of terminating the pregnancy. Her life may be sacrificed to the adherence of a particular dogma. Even if she is in good health, her husband may have syphilis or AIDS or some other condition that could affect the health of a baby. But she is legally powerless.

I got this from a blog http://www.boomantribune.com/

Jan Cornell (Electronic mail, August 30, 2009)