GOP Candidate Is Cool With Spousal Rape

Some interpreted Ken Cuccinelli’s humiliating loss in the Virginia governor’s race last year as a sign that parading anti-woman, anti-gay candidates maybe isn’t the best way to improve the GOP brand. But others apparently disagreed, as one of the leading Republican contenders for the state’s open congressional seat is Dick Black, a hyperconservative GOP state senator who makes Cuccinelli look like Cecile Richards. To take one of many examples, Black once argued that spousal rape shouldn’t be against the law, because the wife might have been wearing a nightie.

“I do not know how on Earth you could validly get a conviction of a husband-wife rape where they’re living together, sleeping in the same bed, she’s in a nightie, and so forth,” Black said in 2002. “There’s no injury, there’s no separation, or anything.”

Black’s campaign subsequently claimed that he wasn’t actually taking a position against spousal rape laws, which is a bit tough to square with his charming floor speech above. Regardless, he did explicitly say that “there’s no injury” incurred when a man rapes his wife, which seems to paint a pretty indisputable picture of his views on marriage.

But Black has plenty of other awful opinions. He said military rape was “as predictable as human nature,” explaining that “wouldn’t you love to have a group of 19-year-old girls under your control, day in, day out?” He tried to ban same-sex couples from applying for low-interest home loans, as that would “subsidize sodomy and adultery,” and has said that abortion is worse than slavery. To that effect, he once opposed putting a statue of Abraham Lincoln at a Civil War historical site, going so far as to petition the state’s Attorney General to investigate whether the statue was in violation of any laws. It wasn’t.

Black is running to replace Frank Wolf, a moderate Republican who’s retiring at the end of this term. But that congressional district only voted for Mitt Romney by a one percent margin in 2012, so if Black is the candidate, there’s a real chance that the GOP could throw away yet another winnable election by nominating a far-right lunatic.

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