VA-05: In a red House district, a Democrat tries to siphon votes
MADISON, Va. — At a church the size of a warehouse at the end of a rural dead-end street, Bob Good was preaching to the preachers.
It was a sunny afternoon near Shenandoah National Park, and Good, the Republican nominee in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District, had come to Fellowship Baptist Church to warn a small group of church leaders that, as one invitation to his “Pastor Summit” put it, “your religious liberties are under assault.”
Another invitation made clear what Good, 54, believes to be at least one culprit: the Virginia Values Act, which made the state the first in the South to protect members of the LGBTQ community from discrimination in housing, employment and places of public accommodation.
“What happens when a male member of your congregation goes on vacation and returns 4 weeks later as a female?” said one email invitation sent by Pastor Travis Witt, the Good campaign’s faith coalition leader and former leader of Virginia’s tea party, and reported by the New York Times ahead of the event.
Protesters with the left-leaning group Indivisible Charlottesville took to the streets on Tuesday to condemn the anti-transgender rhetoric, flying rainbow flags and holding signs supporting Good’s Democratic opponent, Cameron Webb.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/bob-good-cameron-webb-culture-wars/2020/08/23/d658b0ec-e3f9-11ea-b69b-64f7b0477ed4_story.html