This morning I mentioned that Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell was coming up on a deadline for a proposal to allow gays to adopt in the state of Virginia. Today O'Donnell made his opposition to the measure clear, the Washington Post reports:

“I know I had said during the campaign that I would essentially keep our adoption laws — which I think are good — the way they are now,'' McDonnell said. “I think the current regulations that are in place seem to be working well.”

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The proposal, according to the governor's office, would mandate that gay singles and unmarried couples be able to access faith-based groups, such as Catholic Charities and Jewish Family Services, to adopt children.

“I don't think we ought to force Catholic Charities to make that part of their policy or other similar situated groups,'' McDonnell said. “Many of our adoption agencies are faith-based groups that ought to be able to establish what their own policies are. Current regulations that say you can't discriminate on the basis of race, color or national origin I think are proper. I think previous efforts to expand that to a number of other classes are going to have very strict scrutiny to make sure that we don't inhibit the very fine work some faith-based organizations are doing.”

Anti-gay Delegate Bob Marshall has been lobbying McDonnell to recommend that the State Board of Social Services kill the proposal, which prompted Equality Virginia to counter with an email blast:

“A massive email campaign by organizations that have opposed every regulatory and legislative effort to afford gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender Virginians the basic human right to live, work and raise their children in the Commonwealth free from discrimination resulted in a flurry of comments…opposing the non-discrimination provision included in the proposed rules,'' the group wrote in its email.

Currently, married couples, and single men and women regardless of sexual orientation can adopt.

You may recall that early last year following outrage over Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's advice that public universities should rescind their bylaws protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination, Governor Bob McDonnell issued an unenforceable "directive" saying the state should not discriminate based on sexual orientation.

McDonnell previously signed an executive order which explicitly removed language protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination from the state's anti-bias laws.