Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Robert McDonnell (pictured)
finds his campaign rocked by the emergence of a graduate thesis from
1989 in which he wrote that the government must “restrain,
punish, and deter” homosexuality.

McDonnell, a former Virginia attorney general, wrote the 93-page thesis while studying for a law degree and master’s in public policy at Regent University, a Christian school founded by Pat Robertson in Virginia Beach.

In the document, first reported in TheWashington Post, McDonnell discussed how the government could take an active role in the promotion of family values by fighting homosexuality.

“Man’s basic nature is inclined towards evil, and when the exercise of liberty takes the shape of pornography, drug abuse, or homosexuality, the government must restrain, punish, and deter,” he wrote, according to the Washington Blade, which reported excerpts of the thesis that also criticized feminists and women who work outside the home.

The Washington Post links to the full thesis in this article. 

Democrats have seized on the thesis in order to support their candidate, Creigh Deeds.

McDonnell has distanced himself from the document and said that his views have changed. He was 34 at the time he wrote the thesis.