At first glance, the window on 1st Street seems normal enough: “Virgil H. Goode, Jr., Fifth District, Virginia.” Underneath, carefully stenciled in gold paint, as if to meet the approval of the Board of Architectural Review: “BIGOT.”
Goode garnered national attention before Christmas with his comments on freshman Minnesota congressman-elect Keith Ellison’s plan to be sworn into office using the Muslim holy book, the Koran.
In a December 5 email, Goode warned that Americans should “wake up” or else there would “likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.”
Ellison is an African-American and a Muslim.
Goode, who will take his oath of office on the Bible, told constituents, “I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.”
In the subsequent national outcry, Goode, a Republican who was just reelected to his fifth term in the House, remained unrepentant for the furor his remarks caused and has refused to apologize.
Reported by The Hook, a local paper.