PW County Clerk, Employer of Bigoted Extremist RPV Treasurer, Asks for Stay of Gay Marriage Ruling

First, the breaking news from Markus Schmidt of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Following Monday’s landmark appellate court decision to uphold a ruling to strike down Virginia’s same-sex marriage ban, one of the defendants in the case has asked the court for a motion to stay the ruling, pending an eventual U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Michele B. McQuigg, circuit court clerk in Prince William County, filed the motion today with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond. She also waived her right for a rehearing before the full Court of Appeals, paving the way for a likely Supreme Court review this fall.

Now, why am I not surprised that McQuigg employs extremist bigot – and Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) Treasurer – Bob FitzSimmonds in her office? That’s right, FitzSimmonds is Chief Deputy Clerk of Prince William County, just under Michelle McQuigg on the organizational chart. After I broke the initial story of FitzSimmond’s anti-Muslim (and anti-Sikh, anti-Animist, and anti-Jain) remarks on Wednesday, I emailed McQuigg to ask her if she had any comment, possibly a condemnation, and unsurprisingly received no response. Of course, if McQuigg didn’t take any action – such as firing FitzSimmonds – after his infamous “sexist tw**” remarks, or after this insane interview (in which he talked about “when Obama is 90 years old and he dies and goes to Hell,” how he’s “not a big fan of contraception,” and how pretty soon we’ll be handing out morning-after pills “to babies”), then we can only presume that McQuigg – a Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1998 to 2008 – agrees with FitzSimmonds. Of course, based on McQuigg’s Project Vote Smart ratings (e.g., ZERO from NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, ZERO from Planned Parenthood, 100% from the Family Foundation of Virginia), that wouldn’t be surprising in the least.

P.S. h/t to Anna Scholl of ProgressVA for catching that one immediately.