Beatin' 'Em Back

Sometimes the best way to raise your own positives is to pump up the other side's negatives.

Correlation 1: Sometimes advancing your own agenda means stomping on the other side's attempt's to push for a Trigger-Happy Christianist Idiocracy.

Va Pilot Online:

Gov. Terry McAuliffe has vetoed Republican-sponsored legislation that would prohibit state censorship of certain military chaplains' prayers, a move lobbied for by the American Civil Liberties Union, but disappointing to some social conservatives.

The Democrat Thursday spiked a bill from GOP Sen. Dick Black of Loudoun County, reasoning hisSB 555 "would seriously undermine the religious freedom of National Guard members by potentially exposing them to sectarian proselytizing."

McAuliffe's veto of the bill that would apply to the state-controlled Virginia National Guard and Virginia Defense Force is the second of the governor's young term.

He vetoed a guns rights expansion bill last week.

While military chaplains can minister as they choose at voluntary worship services or unofficial private settings, they don't "have the right to use official, mandatory events as a platform to disseminate their own religious views," McAuliffe wrote in a March 27 veto letter.

American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia director Claire Guthrie Gastañaga this month urged McAuliffe to veto Black's bill, arguing "National Guard members required to attend any official event have the right not to be forced to worship in another person's faith."

Sen. Bill Carrico perceives the veto as a blow against religious freedom, not a protection of it, saying McAuliffe has taken a stand "against any bills protecting individuals' rights to conscience."

McAuliffe owes the public an answer as to why he thinks government should control "what they say and what they believe," said Carrico, a former state trooper who has fought to free Virginia State Police chaplains to offer sectarian prayers.

Recalling Black's bill passed the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates by voting margins above the requisite two-thirds veto-proof majority, Carrico, R-Grayson County, said he hopes there are enough votes to override McAuliffe's veto.  -- Julian Walker

--and--

He vetoed Del. Ben Cline's HB962, intended to clarify that gun owners without concealed handgun permits can keep the weapons in their vehicles if they're secured in compartments that aren't locked. McAuliffe considers that broadened definition a public safety risk.

An amendment from McAuliffe had required storage of weapons in locked containers but was rejected by the Republican-run House of Delegates earlier this month. Cline, R-Rockbridge County, has said the legislation is necessary to make it clear that a storage container needn't be locked to comply with the law.

McAuliffe's veto is the final action on Cline's bill this year, legislative officials said.

I'm not going to start crowing about what a great and powerful and steadfast defender of American democracy Mr McAuliffe is.  He's a 3rd Way Clintonite Neo-Liberal, and a politician who got elected because he's a step or two above a crotch stain like Kenny the Kooch.  So there will come a time when it becomes obvious that he's made a deal that he can get us to believe is good for us, but really just keeps his buddies in power and the rest of us in line.

That said, here's hoping Gov McAuliffe proves me dead wrong by disappointing me in a good way.