Yesterday during the Virginia elections of 2013 there were many winners last night, the two biggest being Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam, both Democrats who won their bids for Governor and Lt. Governor, respectively. On the other hand the two biggest losers yesterday were Ken Cuccinelli and E.W. Jackson, both Republicans who lost their bids for Governor and Lt. Governor, respectively (the Attorney General's race is still to close to call at this point). But the biggest winner of this election didn't even run at all, and isn't even a person, but a philosophical ideal: reason.
With this victory over both Ken Cuccinelli and E.W. Jackson, Virginia voters have basically reject both men's extremist views and their blatant disregard of the law, civil liberties, and science when it suits them.
Both Cuccinelli and Jackson are notorious homophobics, and have made it very clear that they believe that homosexuality is wrong, and Cuccinelli even attempted to get U.S. Supreme Court to overturn it's own ruling that declared that archaic sodomy laws were unconstitutional, probably so he could have a legal way to prosecute homosexuals. He also wanted state colleges and universities to stop including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or like classification from their nondiscrimination policies.
Cuccinelli is also a climate change denier, and not only attempted to sue the EPA over it's findings of greenhouse gases being a danger to public health, and the federal standards for fuel efficiency for cars and trucks under the Clean Air Act, he even pretty much tried to use his own office to harass climate scientist Michael E. Mann, using the dubious claims that Dr. Mann had possibly violated state fraud laws in relation to five research grants by allegedly manipulating climate change data. Fortunately Cuccinelli lost in his attempts to prosecute Dr. Mann.
Cuccinelli is also extremely anti-abortion, and sponsored numerous bills to try to "discourage" women from having an abortion (aka try to intimidate women into not having an abortion), but also tried to alter licensing and regulations of abortion clinics in the state of Virginia in a blatant attempt to shut them down. Heck, he even tried to ban birth control (which actually would have cut down on the number of abortions in Virginia).
There are ofcourse numerous other reasons why it was a good thing that Cuccinelli and Jackson did not win yesterday, and while McAuliffe and Northam were the winners, the big winners were science, tolerance, equality, civil rights, women's right, the poor, the environment, and ultimately reason and everyone in Virginia.
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