Cuccinelli -- a far-right, gay-bashing Virginia politician -- is now our Attorney General and as such is empowered to issue legal advice and has the authority to follow up his advice with legal action against anyone who does not follow it.

He has now declared that, because the state has no law preventing discrimination based on sexual orientation, state colleges and universities can no longer include discrimination based on sexual orientation as one of the practices they ban on their campuses.

Of course, as far as the Old Redneck knows, there is no state law against cheating on final exams, so, . . .

Here's a link to the full WaPost article.

And here are excerpts from the article.

Virginia attorney general to colleges: End gay protections By Rosalind S. Helderman

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, March 6, 2010; A01 ICHMOND -- 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.

Reaction from colleges and universities is muted -- so far.

Cuccinelli's move has dismayed students and faculty members. It suggests that Cuccinelli intends to take a harder line with the state's university system, where liberal academics have long coexisted uneasily with state leaders in Richmond. "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," he wrote in the letter. Colleges that have included such language in policies that govern university hiring and admissions -- which include all of Virginia's largest schools -- have done so "without proper authority" and should "take appropriate actions to bring their policies in conformance with the law and public policy of Virginia," Cuccinelli wrote. Official representatives of several universities, including the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, the College of William and Mary and George Mason University, reacted cautiously to the letter, declining to comment and indicating that their governing boards would examine the issue.

As you would expect, Republicans in Virginia just love Cuccinelli's attack on the colleges.

Former attorney general Jerry Kilgore (R) agreed it would be difficult for Cuccinelli to enforce his opinion without pursuing court action. But he said college visitors swear an oath to abide by state statute. "Board members are required to follow the law," Kilgore said. "And he's telling them what the law is." Cuccinelli's predecessor, Robert F. McDonnell (R), who became governor in January, also held that only the General Assembly could name new classes for legal protections. But he never specifically targeted university policies that seemingly contradicted his position. And in a 2006 letter to Longwood University, his office declined to conclusively tell the Farmville school that it could not include sexual orientation in its policy.

Meanwhile, on several other fronts, AG Cuccinelli -- backed, I'm certain, by the governor -- a graduate of Pat Robertson University -- has no plans to limit his march backward to gay rights only.

The former Fairfax County senator has signaled that he will be an activist attorney general. This month, he sued the federal Environmental Protection Agency, challenging its ruling that greenhouse gases pose a public health risk by contributing to global warming. He also advised McDonnell to halt a process begun by former governor Timothy M. Kaine (D) in December that could have resulted in Virginia allowing health benefits for the partners of gay state employees, including at colleges and universities. "I don't think it's going to surprise anyone that Attorney General Cuccinelli is not going to be a quiet attorney general," said Christopher Freund, a spokesman for the Family Foundation, which has long contended that legal protections based on sexual orientation are unnecessary. Freund applauded Cuccinelli for the consistency of his advice.

One wonders:

Why do rightwing Republican men spend so much time thinking about other men's dicks and what they do with them????

What's next in Virginia: College admissions open only to straight white men who carry concealed weapons? Only slave owners will be allowed to vote? African-Americans will count as 3/5 of a person in the census?

Don't laugh, folks -- we tried to warn Virginians where the McDonnell-Cuccinelli-Pat Robertson administration would take us and now we are headed down that road.