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The 10 Most Outrageous Facts About Virginia’s New Senate Candidate Bob Marshall

Infamous Virginia State Delegate Bob Marshall (R) threw his hat into a crowed GOP field to fill Virginia’s open Senate seat today. Marshall has made a name for himself by pursuing anti-gay and anti-women’s choice legislation with more zeal than hardly any other politician in the country, but has dabbled in far-right legislation across the policy spectrum.

Some of Bob Marshall’s greatest hits:

1. Suggested that children born with disabilities are God’s punishment to women who have previously had abortions. “When you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children,” he said.

2. Warned homosexual behavior “undermines the American economy” in an angry letter to the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond after it flew a rainbow flag. The flag “celebrated” homosexual acts, which Marshall said are Class 6 felony in the state. He has also called homosexuality a “disordered behavior.”

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3. Warned repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) will “jeopardize our alliances,” especially with Muslim countries, because foreign troops will refuse to fight alongside gay Americans.

4. After DADT was repealed, introduced legislation banning “active homosexuals” from joining the Virginia National Guard.

5. Called the Affordable Care Act “criminal” and an attempt to steal “your soul.”

6. Thinks the best answer to school shootings is to arm professors, sponsoring a bill to “allow faculty members to carry concealed handguns on college campuses.”

7. Advocated unconstitutional bills to allow Virginia to ignore laws passed by the U.S Congress.

8. Sponsored a bill to require schools to designate a 5-minute period each day for students to “read morally or ethically relevant materials.”

9. Sponsored a bill that would make the use of profane, indecent, or threatening language in a personal e-mail a misdemeanor.”

10. Sponsored the “Marshall-Newman” anti-gay marriage amendment in 2006, which was written so broadly that many warned it could “undermine the rights of all unmarried couples to enter into contracts, enforce wills and child custody agreements or receive the protection of domestic violence laws.”

Despite his impeccable right-wing credentials, Marshall will have stiff competition for conservative voters in the race from tea party organizer Jamie Radtke, fringe-conservative minister E.W. Jackson, and businessman David McCormick, who are all running to the right of frontrunner George Allen, the former senator best known for using the racial slur “macaca.”