Virginia's Taliban: Bob Marshall

He doesn't have Mullah Omar's thick dark scraggly beard or black turban. Indeed, he dresses in conservative business suits with boring rep ties. Don't let looks deceive, however: Virginia Delegate Robert Marshall, Republican from Prince William County, is the leader of Virginia's Taliban--religious conservatives who hope to impose their will on the way the rest of us live our private lives.

Put aside Marshall's loud sponsorship of Virginia's overbroad constitutional amendment prohibiting gay unions of any kind and his sponsorship of the usual raft of abortion restrictions and stem cell prohibitions. You see these all the time, all over the country.

Here's some of Marshall's proposals you may not have heard of, which have earned him our nomination as Virginia's Mullah Omar.

--HB 187: would prohibit any licensed health care provider in the state of Virginia from performing any medical procedure that "replaces sexual intercourse as the means of conception." In other words, no "unmarried woman" in the Commonwealth could get pregnant through artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, etc.

(Oh, if you are an unmarried woman in Virginia who is raped and gets pregnant through such means, Marshall would prohibit you from getting an abortion. If you were a college student, he would prohibit your college from prescribing a "morning after" pill to keep you from getting pregnant after being raped.)

--HB 197: would require couples in Virginia seeking to get married to choose between a marriage license that allows "no fault" divorce and one that does not. This bill oddly forecasts that young couples contemplating marriage are in a position to give up their rights to a no-fault divorce while in the pangs of love.

--HB 412: would prohibit anonymous egg and sperm donors for use "in the performance of intervening medical technology that completely or partially replaces sexual intercourse as a means of conception." You see the pattern here--Marshall wants to restrict, as much as possible, any procedure that "replaces sexual intercourse as a means of conception." And, of course, you know that in his heart of hearts, he'd love to restrict any sexual intercourse that wasn't for the purpose of conception!

--HB 2798: would prohibit divorce in any case where a couple has children and both spouses don't consent to the divorce. (Hat tip to 750 Volts for this one.) As our fellow blogger at 750 points out, such a law would allow an abusive spouse--including one who has abused the children--to veto a divorce.

There are other similar laws proposed by Marshall, but you get the picture. Like the Taliban in Afghanistan, and like religious fanatics around the globe, Marshall wants to impose his narrow, religiously based world-view on the rest of us Virginians.

We'd like to see Marshall don a black turban so the voters would know who they're really dealing with.