Virginia Del. Bob Marshall, the sponsor of a measure that would go beyond the state’s existing Religious Freedom Restoration Act to explicitly allow discrimination against LGBT people, complained in a radio interview earlier this month that business that oppose such bills are implying that “heterosexuals cannot be the best and the brightest.”
Falsely claiming that a controversial “religious liberty” measure recently debated in Indiana was no different from the RFRA already on the books in Virginia and other states, Marshall told talk radio host John Fredericks that he took issue with a letter Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe published in the Indianapolis Star inviting businesses to relocate to his state’s “open, inclusive and thriving business environment.”
Such rhetoric, Marshall complained, is derogatory to straight people: “When you actually look at the rhetoric, that you need these laws to hire the best and the brightest, that kind of like is a sweeping statement that says that heterosexuals cannot be the best and the brightest.”
Marshall also objected to claims that legislation like his would diminish the rights of LGBT people. “My question is, what possible rights can a person who has this inclination have that you don’t have right now?” he asked. “I mean, homosexuals go to public schools, they can go to colleges, they vote, they drive cars, they have businesses, they go to country clubs. I don’t know what else is needed.”
