OLD DOMINIONIST: McDONNELL CONTINUES TO PURSUE THEOCRACY

Bob McDonnell, the Pat Robertson-loving governor of Virginia who's referred to the governorship as a "ministry" and has already deprived gay state workers of anti-discrimination protection from state workers (when he wasn't ignoring slavery in the process of proclaiming Confederate History Month), is at it again:

After months of lobbying by conservative activists, Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) has quietly reversed a policy banning Virginia State Police troopers from referring to Jesus Christ in public prayers.

McDonnell this afternoon sent Col. W. Steven Flaherty, the State Police superintendent, to tell the nine troopers who serve as chaplains about the change in policy....

In September 2008, Flaherty told chaplains to offer nondenominational prayers at department-sanctioned public events in response to a recent federal appeals court ruling that a Fredericksburg City Council member may not pray "in Jesus's name" during council meetings because the opening invocation is government speech....

Well, I live in a city where even non-Jewish police officers refer to mentors on the force as "rabbis," and where the force has a 200-member-strong Muslim officers' association (including dozens of Arab speakers, many of whom now work in counterterrorism), so the notion of treating Christianity as univerrsal among cops is bizarre to me.

Maybe not so much in Virginia, but who knows? Hmmm ... I wonder what the best-known member of Virginia's congressional delegation -- Eric Cantor, the only Jewish Republican in the House of Representatives -- would have to say about this.