Last Updated on March 20, 2022
Pro-trans Republican Jen Kiggans, who is the establishment pick for Congress in Virginia’s battleground 2nd District, struggled to explain away her vote for the Virginia Values Act when questioned by voters during a radio interview. Kiggans’ campaign has been dogged by her far-left voting record and she falsely claimed on-air that the VVA was meant to govern housing and employment rights to help keep transgenders off of welfare.
In reality, the legislation has been dubbed the biggest state-level LGBT bill in American history and has been accused by faith leaders of criminalizing Christianity. The Virginia Values Act was also cited by the state’s education department in forcing schools to adopt “trans-affirming” bathroom and pronoun policies – like the ones that got 3 Loudoun County schoolgirls raped by a “gender-fluid” male in a skirt.
This week, while Kiggans sat down for a radio interview with Tony Macrini on Virginia Beach’s WNIS, a pair of voters emailed the show to challenge Kiggans on her 2020 vote in Virginia’s State Senate for the pro-trans Virginia Values Act. Also known as the VVA, or SB-868, the Virginia Values Act was a central part of former Governor Ralph Northam’s far-left agenda, and Kiggans crossed party lines to vote with Democrats on the legislation.
Kiggans has come under heavy scrutiny throughout her GOP primary campaign over her vote for the pro-trans legislation that effectively re-wrote the Virginia Human Rights Act in the image of the far-left LGBT lobby. With the Virginia Values Act providing the legal “anti-discrimination” framework, Democrats went on to deeply entrench “trans-affirming” laws and policies all across Virginia, including in schools, where the VVA was directly cited by the education department in opening girls’ restrooms up to men thanks to the VVA’s governing of “public accommodations” including restrooms.
“The Virginia Values Act that was voted on, that is actually an employment and a housing bill. The word bathroom is not in that bill,” Kiggans claimed in response to the voters, playing word games with the bill’s public accommodation section. “You can look it up, you can Google the word,” Kiggans said, seeming to believe she could trick the voters.
Kiggans then went on to bizarrely claim that the bill was not just a housing and employment protection act but was also designed to help military veterans and breast-feeding mothers while also keeping transgenders off of welfare, something she says is a core tenet of conservatism.
“The bill is about having – a nondiscrimination bill in employment and housing. What that – the Values Act bill – also included things like veterans, disabled people, nursing mothers, pregnant mothers, minorities – the LGBT community was included in those things,” Kiggans said beginning to sound as if she was struggling to come up an actual answer.
“As a conservative, as a Republican, I want people to have a job. I want people to have a home. I do not want to pay you to sit in your house to be unemployed,” Kiggans said, going to say that as an “equality candidate” she wants to make sure everyone has a chance to pay taxes to the government, including transgenders.
“So for me, I want to have all equality for people, I am an equality candidate. We all should be able to hold a job to get out there to pay our taxes to contribute to society, I don’t want anything – anyone to feel like they are discriminated against and they need to be staying home because that, again, that opportunity to have people have jobs and have work that’s what that bill was about. The bill did not say the word bathroom anywhere in the bill.”
Kiggans’ front running primary opponent, Jarome Bell has made exposing the Kevin McCarthy-backed candidate’s left-wing voting record a centerpiece of his campaign and blasted Kiggans’ radio statements in comments made to National File.
“The irresponsible word play of Kiggans is repulsive and totally unacceptable,” said Bell, blasting Kiggans over her assertion that the Virginia Values Act didn’t impact bathrooms because the word itself didn’t appear in the bill. “If she doesn’t realize or understand meanings of legal writings or terms like ‘public accommodation’ then she need not be a legislator of any sort, let alone at the highest levels of our government.”
Bell and Kiggans will face off in a June primary for the right to take on Democrat incumbent and 1/6 committee member Elaine Luria. Luria herself has come under fire recently for her financial ties to the Chinese Communist Party and their espionage operations as well as her resistance to restrictions on stock trading by members of Congress. While Bell has called on Luria to resign over her Communist espionage ties, Kiggans has not.
Both Kiggans and Luria represent the establishment wings of their respective parties, with Luria backed by Nancy Pelosi and Kiggans by Kevin McCarthy.
Kiggans has also refused to back a potential 2024 Trump run for President. On the other hand, Jarome Bell represents the America First wing of the GOP, and had been endorsed by the likes of General Mike Flynn and Rep. Paul Gosar, fully embracing the MAGA movement.
Listen to Jen Kiggans’ full radio interview below:
https://twitter.com/stockes76/status/1504792668064395266?s=21
