Virginia Attorney General against protection for gay state employees.

If you haven't seen this yet, it's pretty heinous. The Washington Post reports that Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) "has asked the state's public colleges and universities to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation..."

His argument is that the public colleges and universities added policies forbidding discrimination without the approval of the state assembly. According to the Post's article, his predecessor Robert F. McDonnell (R) also held similar thoughts on discrimination law, that "only the General Assembly could name new classes for legal protections."

Effectively, the state of Virginia doesn't like that its institutions of higher learning have passed them on the highway of enlightened governing. The message is "Whoa, whoa! Slow down there. We're not quite sure we think gays are real people, yet."

It would do Mr. Cuccinelli -- and those who think like him -- well to consider how the phrase "wrong side of history" applies to them. The quote "Segregation now, segregation forever!" is used again and again to illustrate our history of reprehensible bigotry. It also illustrates the progress a complicated country like ours can make. 47 years after George Wallace made that speech as Alabama's newly elected governor, we now have a black president. I predict that history will look on Cuccinelli's brand of bigotry in a similar light.