The Stakes Are Too High to Sit Out the Midterms in Virginia (and Elsewhere)

Early voting for this year’s mid-term elections began in Virginia this week, on September 18. Some will default to the too-customary indifference to mid-term elections, but this would be wrong, profoundly wrong, dangerously wrong. This time — and not just in Virginia — our future well-being is on the ballot.

Start with Virginia, though, and focus first on three state constitutional amendments that are on the ballot. All three, tellingly, were placed on the ballot by the Democrat-dominated state legislature. The first, although misleadingly labeled, enshrines abortion through the end of pregnancy as a state constitutional right. Although dressed in the usual dishonest “reproductive rights” language, it enshrines a radical anti-life position, no different in substance from that recently enacted in Massachusetts to the clamorous approval of the radical left. (RELATED: The Demonic Possession of Liberal Women)

The second proposed amendment removes the existing language in the Virginia Constitution that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Instead, it would codify the idea that two adults may marry regardless of sex, gender, or race. This is being presented as a simple exercise in constitutional “clean-up,” but this, once again, is highly deceptive. Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell decision, same sex marriages in Virginia have been legal, regardless of the existing “man and woman” definition of marriage in the state constitution.

To the extent that the issue is simply one of gay marriage, Obergefell rendered the issue moot in Virginia. Until such time as Obergefell is overturned — an unlikely prospect — there is no threat to gay marriage in Virginia. Using the fear of such a threat as political cover, however, the proposed amendment undertakes to bootleg gender ideology into the state constitution, a very different matter, and one that deserves honest debate rather than electoral sleight-of-hand.

Electoral dishonesty, however, has become the calling card of Virginia Democrats, the trickery through which a state that divides roughly 50-50 in terms of political affiliation is manipulated into supporting a radical leftist agenda. We saw this play out in the last election, when gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger ran as a middle-of-the-road “woman of the people,” before laying out a hard-left agenda on the day she assumed office. (RELATED: The Abigail Spanberger Bait-and-Switch)

The same kind of dishonesty was evident in the proposed redistricting amendment, which presented itself — in the ballot language itself — as all about “fairness” while in fact disenfranchising almost half of the state’s voters. But you wouldn’t have known this from either the ballot language or from the overwhelmingly fawning coverage from the dominant media markets in the D.C. suburbs, in Richmond, or in the Norfolk/Hampton Roads urban agglomerations. (RELATED: Spanberger’s Spectacular Gerrymandering Faceplant)

And now Virginians are seeing this again: deceptive language and equally deceptive media coverage from the mainstream media. Fortunately, there are countervailing voices. This past Sunday, priests throughout the Diocese of Arlington, which covers most of northern Virginia, read a letter from Bishop Michael Burbidge, condemning Amendments 1 and 2 in no uncertain terms. Bishop Burbidge noted that Amendment 1 would “create a legal right to unregulated abortions, performed by unlicensed practitioners at any time during pregnancy … targeting healthy babies all the way up to birth.” He further observed that it would extend this “right” to minors, while removing “the role of parents concerning these … life-altering and irreversible decisions.”

Abortion, of course, is legal in Virginia, so the amendment is really about something more; in fact, a radical extension of the existing norm. If honestly presented, this is something few Virginians would endorse. Instead, this is about extending a “right” to abortion right up to the very edge of infanticide. And as anyone who’s listened to the “changing attitudes” nonsense by some members of the Lindsay Clancy jury, one sees how easily an “end of pregnancy” regime for “healthy babies” starts to look an awful (or AWFL) lot like a precursor to infanticide.

Bishop Burbidge also calls out Amendment 2, which pretends to be a clarification while actually introducing all the deceptive ambiguity of transgender ideology into the state constitution itself. The good news is that Bishop Burbidge is not alone. His counterpart in Richmond has also condemned these two amendments, as have Protestant pastors across the state.

Sadly, however, they are swimming upstream in a world in which other Catholic bishops have tried to “balance” the mortal sin of abortion against such woke pieties as climate change and uncontrolled illegal immigration. In a world in which the Joe Bidens, the Nancy Pelosis, and the Dick Durbins continue to be allowed Catholic communion in spite of their support for abortion, it’s too easy for ordinary Catholics to be deceived. (RELATED: Catholic Cognitive Dissonance)

One need not be a Catholic, nor even a decent Christian, to see how deeply wrong these measures are. Their practical effects will be horrendous; moreover, they distort the entire moral basis of our communities. They signal a debasement of fundamental Virginia values, a pull from moderate center into “social justice” leftism of the worst kind.

The third amendment also partakes of the Democrats’ radical leftist agenda, calling for the automatic restoration of a convicted felon’s voting rights upon the completion of time served. Can convicted felons regain their rights today? Of course they can, but not automatically, not without demonstrating that they have earned the right to be restored to the community of full citizenship. Here again, we see more evidence of Democrat indulgence of deviant and criminal behavior.

The issues in Virginia, however, go far beyond the need for a resounding “no” to these three egregiously wrongheaded amendments. Instead, the issue is with the Democrats themselves, and with their dominance of both houses of the legislature and their control of the governor’s office. Everywhere one turns, the “Californication” of Virginia proceeds apace, in spite of fresh evidence daily that this is making life worse for Virginians.

There is no solution short of reclaiming control of the legislature, and, in the fullness of time, the governor’s office. So long as the Democrats remain in charge, measures such as these constitutional amendments — and many other equally egregious everyday laws — will be inflicted upon the citizens of the state.

There is literally no issue, none whatsoever, that will be improved if the Democrats take control this November

I’m fully aware of the weaknesses of the Virginia Republican Party. I wish that it were better led, and I wish it could unite around a genuinely conservative agenda. I wish, above all, that it could fight elections as if the lives of Virginians depended on the outcome, instead of giving in to petty internal grievances of the sort that hobbled the campaign of Winsome Earle-Sears.

Still, we should remind ourselves that, whatever their weaknesses, the Republicans aren’t, to put it bluntly, batshit crazy. The Democrats are, and if we don’t want Virginia to be run by the kind of people who’ve run the typical blue state into the ground, then we need to vote Republican up and down the line. Harking back once again to the Lindsay Clancy trial, we have to embrace being the lone juror rather than the obnoxious majority.

There’s a lesson in all this that goes far beyond Virginia. One can complain about all manner of problems with the Republicans in Congress. One can be disappointed with President Trump. One can be unhappy with the economy, with the war in Iran, or with almost any other current issue that you care to name. But there is literally no issue, none whatsoever, that will be improved if the Democrats take control this November of the House of Representatives, or, God forbid, both houses of Congress.

Here in Virginia, or across the United States, turnout will be key. There has to be a strong and solid vote against everything the current Democrats stand for. There has to be a stand taken against the communist agenda of the Democratic Socialists. There has to be a rejection of the new American intifada. There has to be a message to the IRGC that the Democrats aren’t going to ride to their rescue.

We don’t have the luxury of sitting this one out.

READ MORE from James H. McGee:

Dale Rex: The ‘Incredible’ Hero of Horseshoe Woods

Iryna Zarutska, Lindsay Clancy, and the Politics of Who Gets Mourned

Conservatives Should Begin Eating Woke Culture for Breakfast

James H. McGee is a retired nuclear security and counter-terrorism professional. His most recent novel, The Zebras from Minsk, was featured among National Review’s favorite books in 2025. His next novel, The Cathedral of Sorrows, will directly focus on the plight of Africa’s Christians. You can find The Zebras from Minsk and his previous thriller, Letter of Reprisal, in paperback and Kindle editions at Amazon. The Cathedral of Sorrows will appear at Christmas.