Via Blue Arkansas Blog, we learn get further proof of what we already knew: Tim Wooldridge is no more a Democrat than is Mike Huckabee. We also, however, see that Wooldridge is an awful person who actively supports discrimination based upon sexual orientation.
In a video interview with Family Council, Wooldridge was asked:
Statement number seven deals with homosexuality. Please state whether you support, oppose, or are undecided regarding this statement: The Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009 [inaudible] that seeks to prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation by making sexual orientation a protected class like race or religion.
Wooldridge was not thrown by the confusing grammar of the question, and he responded:
Well, I think that every individual has value, uh, but, uh, I don’t — I don’t believe we should protect what, uh, in my estimation is a choice of conduct, uh, rather than, uh, uh, something, uh, for which a person is born.
I see at least two flaws with this line of thinking. First, while no single “gay gene” has been found, scientists and researchers generally agree that there is some amount of underlying genetic makeup involved in homosexuality. Which, you know, sounds to me like some percentage of the “decision” to be homosexual is the result of a person’s DNA. Last I checked, I could not choose my own DNA.
However, I CAN CHOOSE to join pretty much any religion I want, and my employer cannot discriminate based upon that CHOICE OF CONDUCT. The part that Wooldridge and others can’t seem to wrap their bigoted brains around is that a person is not born with anything that inherently causes him or her to prefer a certain religion; religious choices are purely a result of environment and custodial choice. Even religions like Catholicism or Judaism, which generally look upon a child born to a parent of that religion as a member of said religion, are not tied to a genetic predisposition to that religion.
So, Tim, I ask you: should we make discrimination against certain religions ok, too? Because your explanation sort of requires that result if you don’t want to be a hypocrite.
The scary part of all of this is Wooldridge’s statement is that he has a sizable lead in name recognition and fundraising over the other AR-01 candidates. We here at BHR are proud to support David Cook as the only true progressive Democrat in the race, and we hope that anyone reading this who finds Wooldridge’s views repulsive will contribute to Cook’s campaign.
See also: Arkansas Blog: Wooldridge: Don’t ‘protect’ gays for Max Brantley’s take. Commenter Basil put it best: “There’s nothing—nothing—I can see in Wooldridge’s record that even suggests he’s a Democrat. Princella Smith is a better Democrat.”