Compare and Contrast - The Virginia House Courts of Justice Committee has been conducting an anti-gay witchhunt in the last few weeks. After unusual delay and a trial-like inquiry, as reported in the WaPo, the committee approved the reappointment of a straight female judge to the intermediate level Court of Appeal and has postponed renewing a possibly lesbian judge to the Circuit Court in Newport News. Judge Annunziata, of the appellate court, committed the sin of tolerance and moderation in a case involving homosexuality. Verbana Askey, the trial court judge is facing rumors of being a lesbian herself after a female subordinate filed sexual harrassment charges.

Annunziata provoked the committee's ire when she dissented from a divorce case where the court gave custody to the father because the mother had lesbian relationships after separating from her husband. She argued that the court "applied different standards when evaluating the parties' post-separation sexual conduct." Delegates who voted against reappointment said they wondered if the judge was "the kind of person who is willing to substitute her own policy and political goals for that of the General Assembly."

More problematic to the committee is whether or not sitting judges comply with the state's prohibition on consensual sodomy. Wrote the Post's Virginia columnist,

Virginia Beach Del. Robert F. McDonnell, a Republican, apparently thinks that the sexual orientation of Virginia judges is worthy of legislative scrutiny -- as long as legislators themselves aren't subjected to scrutiny.

It's a sticky situation, but Newport News Circuit Court Judge Verbena Askew, a law-and-order jurist of the sort usually embraced by Republicans, risks not being reappointed to the bench thanks to accusations of sexual harassment. That, in turn, has led to the suggestion that Askew may be a lesbian, which she denies.

Different people see this matter in different ways (Askew was not exactly forthright about the existence of a three-year-old civil settlement of the harassment charge), but it took McDonnell to inject into the controversy Virginia's infamous ban on "crimes against nature," saying that the unsubstantiated claims raise "some questions about the qualifications to serve as a judge."

Engaging in oral or anal sex remains, of course, a felony in Virginia, even when it occurs between married heterosexual partners. Sure enough, a reporter asked McDonnell whether he had ever violated this statute.

"Not that I can recall," the delegate said.

Moving on to twenty-first century news, I read that the newly re-elected Republican governor of Iowa has put gay civil rights at the top of his legislative agenda. Meanwhile, in District news, gays are praising the appointment of Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) as chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the District of Columbia. In the weird world of D.C. politics, where home rule is an ephemeral concept, this committee and its chairman hold an inordinate amount of power over local budgets and policies. Sounds like things are looking up across the Potomac.