Months after racism allegations dogged Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s administration, the state’s top Democrat is now facing scrutiny over a political appointee with a history of anti-Catholic comments.
Gail Gordon Donegan, appointed earlier this month to the Virginia Council on Women, a state body focused on women’s issues, mocked the Catholic Church’s struggle with sexual abuse among its clergy in a series of tweets going back to 2010.
Northam’s appointee also targeted a sacred Catholic ritual and directed vulgar tweets at other targets, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, in tweets uncovered by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
In 2010, she tweeted, “Abortion is morally indefensible to Catholic priests bcuz it results in fewer children to rape.” That same year, she wrote, “Saw a bumper sticker: ‘You can’t be both Catholic & Pro-Choice.’ Add: You can be a pedophile though!”
A year later, she tweeted, “Go tell a Catholic they have dirt on their forehead,” apparently referencing the Catholic practice of receiving ashes on the forehead on Ash Wednesday, the start of the Lenten season of repentance.
In 2013, she tweeted what she later called “my fave joke.”
“Dr, lawyer & priest on Titantic [sic]. Doc: save the children! lawyer: f— the children! Priest: Is there time?” she wrote.
Donegan has targeted other individuals, including Republican and Democratic politicians.
She called former Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann a “dumb bitch” in 2011.
In 2017, she told Radkiha Jones, editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair, to “f— off, eat shit, and crawl back to hell.” Last year, she wrote, “Bernie Sanders and his shithead followers need to f— the f— off.”
Donegan, who tweets under the name “Satirical Alexandria – Rated Fx by the NRA,” with the handle SatirclAlx, has protected her tweets.
Northam’s spokeswoman, Alena Yarmosky, said Donegan “has spent years advocating on behalf of issues important to women across the Commonwealth,” but added, “The governor certainly does not condone this language.”
Donegan defended her posts to the Times-Dispatch.
“Psychological studies show that people who swear make better friends,” said Donegan. “And they’re smarter.”
She added, “I will say for the record that my father was severely beaten in Catholic foster homes and I am an atheist. My father was orphaned at age 4, sent to live in Catholic foster homes and severely beaten until he ran away at age 14.”
She also said her husband “is an ex-Catholic” who is “not offended by my tweets.”
Catholic Diocese of Arlington spokesman Billy Atwell condemned Donegan’s appointment.
“Governor Northam’s appointment of Gail Gordon Donegan to the Virginia Council on Women is disappointing, particularly given her documented use of social media to offend members of the Catholic faith,” Atwell said.
“Ms. Gordon Donegan has a record of ridiculing Catholic beliefs and practices and trafficking in stereotypes that would disqualify her from this role had they targeted any other category of persons,” said Atwell. “Her statements are offensive to human dignity and fail to reflect the depth of character one would expect of a leader in our Commonwealth.”
A spokeswoman for the Catholic Diocese of Richmond called the tweets “extremely offensive to Catholics and the Catholic faith.”
Donegan’s tweets are the latest scandal for Northam’s administration.
Northam faced calls for his resignation earlier this year over allegations of racism after a photo from his medical school yearbook page emerged which showed an individual dressed in a Ku Klux Klan outfit and another in blackface. Northam initially said he was in the photo, before backtracking and saying he wore blackface on a separate occasion.
The governor was also criticized for, in a radio interview in January, giving an answer that was seen by many Republicans as supporting infanticide, in the context of discussing a controversial bill that, its author initially claimed, would protect access to abortion until the moment of birth.
