Assistant Attorney General "Obsessed"

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Michigan's Assistant Attorney General defends 'obsessed' targeting of gay college student on Anderson Cooper show [video]

Posted by duy on September 29, 2010 9:48 AM

''Long before I started the blog, a couple of weeks before that, the Alliance Defense Fund, a well-known legal Christian foundation put out an alert about Chris.... Chris Armstrong is a radical homosexual activist who got elected partly funded by the gay and lesbian Victory Fund to promote a very, deeply radical agenda at the University of Michigan.... His biggest issue is gender-neutral housing! What we're talking about is anybody, any man or woman wanting to choose to live together. That's a radical redefinition of gender norms.... ''Excuse me Anderson, that's taken from another posting. Somewhere on the internet I may have put out that [he's Satan's representative on the student council], but that's my opinion.... I've protested outside of his house, yes. I'm a Christian citizen exercising my First Amendment rights.''

Andrew Shirvell, an Assistant Attorney General for Michigan. He says he has created a blog and possibly posted on other sites comments, photos, videos, and rants about Chris Armstrong, the Student Assembly President of University of Michigan. Anderson Cooper of CNN confronted Shirvell about his inexplicable "political campaign," noting that Shirvell seemed obsessed with this young gay man. (CNN)

Shirvell has marked up pictures of Armstrong (one with a Nazi swastika atop a rainbow flag), and labeled the college student repeatedly with name calling and extremely negative accusations. Shirvell also seems to argue against the allowance of transgener people in student dorms.

On the blog, Shirvell appears to reference himself in the third person via an anonymous moniker: "Concerned Michigan Alumnus." He lifts posts from the Facebook accounts of Armstrong and his friends, then extends his criticism to include other public figures like "anti-Christian, activist judge" Vaughn Walker and Nancy Pelosi.

His job, as Cooper points out, as an Assistant Attorney General is to fairly represent all of the people of Michigan. Here he admits to Cooper that his personal vendettas are driven by extreme religious doctrine similar to the agenda of the anti-gay legal organization called the Alliance Defense Fund.

''Mr. Shirvell's personal opinions are his and his alone and do not reflect the views of the Michigan Department of Attorney General. But his immaturity and lack of judgment outside the office are clear.''

Statement released by Mike Cox, the Attorney General for Michigan and Andrew Shirvell's boss. Cox does not appear to support equal rights for gays either, and he just announced that his office has joined nine other states to try and stop California's Proposition 8 from being overturned by Judge Walker's ruling that Prop 8 was unconstitutional. (CNN)

''I will not back down. I will not flinch. I will not falter. I will not succumb to any unwarranted attacks. What I will do is I will carry on with the utmost pride and vindication.... I, along with the rest of this assembly, were elected to this body to represent the University. And nothing said about us, or regarding our personal merits, will waive our commitment to serve the student body.... I will continue to fight like hell for the students of this university and to better this campus... I believe in this assembly, and I believe in this government.''

Chris Armstrong, as quoted by the campus newspaper of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, responding to the controversy drummed up by the Assistant Attorney General of Michigan, Andrew Shirvell. Armstrong declines to address any of the accusations that the public official has levied against him as a gay man. (The Daily Michigan)