Issue Position: Civil Liberties and Law Enforcement

Issue Position

I believe in individual rights and civil liberties. If no one is being harmed then a law is probably not necessary.

I strongly support law enforcement and the judiciary, and will do my best to see this essential work has the personnel, the pay, and the other resources needed to do an effective job of catching and prosecuting criminals and keeping society secure. I also support fair laws, fairly administered, and the principle of innocent until proven guilty. Once a person has served his or her sentence, and avoids further violations, the restoration of civil rights should proceed quickly.

The freedom of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people to make their own choices should be respected. Virginia should not have a law against gay marriage.

Women must have the ability to make their own healthcare decisions. The government should not be intervening in the most difficult decision a woman might face. Those decisions should be made by a woman in consultation with her family, her doctor, and, if she chooses, her faith counselor. This is consistent with not only American ideals of individual freedom, but with what the Supreme Court determined in Roe vs. Wade.

All thoughtful and ethical people want to foster a culture where people are not pressured into relationships they would not otherwise enter. The reduction of unwanted pregnancies is a goal we all share. For the state to force a woman who does not wish to be a mother to be one is repugnant to me.

Consider the proper role of the government, and why our country's founders specifically excluded placing an individual or the state under the control of any one religion.

In the 1770's several American colonies, including Virginia, were emerging from a state monopoly by a particular denomination. Back in Europe the nations were dominated by one Christian denomination or another. That system had emerged from a century and a half of wars fought in the name of religion. Before those wars one particular denomination had a monopoly on all public religious thought and practice, and did not hesitate to enforce religious obedience with police powers and the military.

Our country's founders rightfully considered coercion to a particular religion wrong. Faith is freely chosen by a free mind, free of pressure from other people, chosen without offer of material reward or threat of material loss. In America, all of us are free to believe our faith as we see right and true, as articulated by a famous Virginian, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson's Statute of Religious Freedom is codified in Virginia law.

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