Del. Bob Marshall (R-south-central Loudoun) is challenging the legality of a recent decision by Loudoun supervisors to include language in the county’s employment policy forbidding discrimination against homosexual and transgender individuals.

Marshall has asked state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli for an opinion on whether the county Board of Supervisors had the authority to vote on such an issue.

Local government, under Dillon’s Rule, are allowed to do only what the state allows them to do, he said.

Marshall said he asked for the opinion after several constituents requested that he do so; however, he said he doesn’t believe the board should have taken such action, either.

“I don’t see the practical need for carving out an exception for homosexuals or transgenders,” Marshall said.

There’s no evidence, he said, that homosexual or transgender residents in Loudoun County are facing employment discrimination.

Loudoun supervisors, after a nearly hour-long debate Jan. 5, voted 6-2-1 to include language forbidding discrimination against homosexual and transgender individuals in the county’s employment policy.

Supervisors Eugene Delgaudio (R-Sterling) and Lori Waters (R-Broad Run) voted against the measure. Chairman Scott York (I-at large) abstained.
Supervisor Stevens Miller (D-Dulles), who initiated the vote, said the board’s decision is legal.

Supervisors, he said, did not vote to change the employment policy, but to add homosexual and transgender individuals to a list of examples of people the county doesn’t discriminate against.

Miller said he couldn’t imagine who could challenge the decision in court since the change didn’t injure anyone.

He said he decided to propose the addition to the county’s employment policy after he learned while campaigning last year for a seat in the state House of Delegates that then Governor-elect Bob McDonnell planned to abandon the previous administration’s executive order banning sexual orientation discrimination in state government hiring practices.

By not issuing the executive order, McDonnell is breaking a symbolic tradition that dates back to Gov. Mills E. Godwin Jr., who left office in 1978.

David Weintraub, president of advocacy group Equality Loudoun, said Marshall’s request to the state attorney general for an opinion is strictly political in nature.

“I think this is an ideological move on [Marshall’s] part,” Weintraub said. “I don’t think they’re really interested in what the law is, I think they’re just interested in getting their way.”