By Mike Tony, Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Standing on the steps of the West Virginia Capitol, Patrick Morrisey delivered more than an inauguration speech upon becoming the state’s 37th governor.
He gave a diagnosis that also was a prediction.
“We will eliminate the woke virus from our schools,” Morrisey pledged in his Jan. 13 address.
Eliminating the “woke virus,” Morrisey indicated moments later, partially meant “no more confusion about the differences between boys and girls.”
Morrisey followed up with a prescription in the form of an announcement at a news conference the next day that “men are men” and “women are women” and reporting a plan to work with the Legislature to “classify that under law.”
At that news conference, Morrisey announced an executive order directing state health officials to establish a process for objections on “religious or conscientious grounds” to vaccines required by state law to immunize schoolchildren against the most serious childhood diseases for admission.
The move’s critics have called it an unconstitutional power grab that jeopardizes public health in West Virginia.