The Truth About John Adams
The liberal media is at it again. This week, Washington Post columnist Laura Vozzella tried to sew together a mismatched tapestry of half-truths and out-of-context quotes from Republican nominee for Attorney General John Adams. The article attacked everything from his views on social issues to something he said to a newspaper in 1994. Simply put, Democratic AG candidate Mark Herring has the Washington Post doing his job for him.
It is necessary as a Republican to debunk the misconceptions that were published in this article and get to the real truth about Mr. Adams and his campaign.
Claim: John Adams is inherently anti-LGBT rights.
Actual Truth: John Adams just wants to follow the rule of law. Also, he wants to actually defend the laws Virginia has already passed.
I’ve spoken at length with Adams about this issue. He isn’t anti-LGBT; he’s against the Virginia Attorney General not following the laws that were voted on by Virginia voters.
Like it or not (and this author, in particular, hates it), the Virginia voters passed a Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage. It’s the law, and if you are the Attorney General of Virginia, the AG has to defend the laws that have been passed by the voters.
However, Mark Herring became what I like to call a “Cafeteria Attorney General.” Some people are familiar with the slang term, “Cafeteria Catholic,” where basically one picks and chooses what they like and dislike about the Catholic church, and follows only the laws of the church they believe. Essentially, AG Herring has decided he is only going to follow the laws that have his personal approval. Here’s a quote from Adams about AG Herring:
“Two words: Mark Herring. I mean it when I say it. I’ve never run for office before. But when I saw the Attorney General really usurping the power of the people by ignoring the laws that we the people pass, picking and choosing which laws he agreed with or disagreed with, to me that was an abrogation of his duty as our Attorney General and when he said he was going to run for reelection, I said, not on my watch.”
This author is a supporter of the Freedom to Marry and LGBT rights. However, I believe the way the Supreme Court chose to basically legislate gay marriage into existence isn’t how laws are supposed to be passed. Laws are supposed to be passed by the legislative branch, signed by the executive branch, and tested for constitutionality by the judicial branch. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say anything about marriage or marriage rights. As much as I would like the Constitution to give the right to marry to everyone, it simply doesn’t.
That’s the main point of Mr. Adams’ argument — that the first problem is that anyone who believes in limited government should have issues with the way gay marriage was legislated from the Supreme Court. The second problem is that Virginia voters had a law on the books and Mark Herring did nothing to defend it.
Claim: “At our debate this morning, here’s what my opponent, John Adams, had to say about women’s access to birth control: ‘It’s not an issue I think about. It’s not an issue I care about,’ ”
TRUTH: John Adams has no interest in taking away the rights of women.
Politics sometimes is just stupid. Literally stupid. There is nothing that can describe the stupidity of politics. Here’s the quote from the debate in question:
They (Democrats) have seized on pro bono, friend-of-the-court briefs Adams wrote supporting the rights of two organizations – the Hobby Lobby retail chain and the Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of Catholic nuns – to be exempted from an Obamacare birth-control mandate due to religious objections.
“He did it on his own, in his spare time,” Herring said in a June 17 debate with Adams in Virginia Beach. “That’s where his passion is, in taking people’s rights away from them.”
Adams said his only interest was in protecting religious freedom.
“I have zero interest in limiting women’s access to birth control. None,” he said. “It’s not an issue I think about. It’s not an issue I care about. I’m not limiting anybody’s access to birth control. It’s silly. Political talk. It’s silly. What I do care about is not allowing the government to force people – the Little Sisters of the Poor – to take actions that violate their religious faith.” [emphasis added]
Within hours, Herring was out with a fund-raising appeal based on a snippet of that exchange.
“At our debate this morning, here’s what my opponent, John Adams, had to say about women’s access to birth control: ‘It’s not an issue I think about. It’s not an issue I care about,’ ” it began.
There is a profound difference in protecting Catholic nuns, and taking women’s birth control options. John Adams helped the Little Sisters of the Poor so that they didn’t have to provide Catholic nuns with birth control methods that are against their religious beliefs. It’s not saying that you or I can’t use birth control methods as we so choose. He just wanted to defend a group of Catholic nuns from having to be provided contraception. Let me be as clear as possible: this had nothing to do with regular, John Q. Public people. He just wanted to protect the rights of Catholic nuns.
Then the Washington Post had to go reprint this STUPID, and might I repeat STUPID, email that Mark Herring sent out. It completely, one thousand percent, took John Adams’ words out of context. It’s not that Adams doesn’t care about people. It’s just that he’s not interested in taking the rights of Virginians away from them. It’s a disgrace and downright pathetic that the Washington Post printed this ridiculous quote from Mr. Herring’s campaign.
Claim: Someone actually cares what John Adams said to the Associated Press twenty years ago about VMI.
TRUTH:
I would like to inform Mrs. Vozella of a cold, hard fact. I don’t give a rat’s behind what John Adams said to a newspaper about his school in 1994. I was three years old in 1994. No Virginia voter out there gives a rip about what John said in 1994.
Mrs. Vozzella even points out that Mr. Adams has changed his position over the years on the issue of VMI accepting women. We all have changed since 1994. We all have wacky off-the-wall ideas from our college years. Most of us have moved on and grown up since that time.
Including Mr. Adams’ 23-year-old comment was a sad attempt by Mrs. Vozzella to dredge up an old quote to make Adams look bad. Trust me, no one in Virginia cares what Adams told the newspaper in 1994 especially since his views have changed on the issue.
Truth: John Adams wants to defend Virginia’s laws, manage the largest law firm in Virginia efficiently, and fight to protect Virginians.
The media is going to do everything in their power to lie about the record of our Republican candidates. It’s time that someone defended Mr. Adams and his record. I hope that voters will keep this in mind in November.
