While anti-gay bigotry and animus remain synonymous with the Republican Party of Virginia and its puppet masters at The Family Foundation, things are shifting rapidly in Virginia - a new poll showed that a majority of Virginians now favor gay marriage - especially in the urban areas of the Commonwealth which when voter turn out is high readily determine which candidates are elected to statewide offices. With a federal lawsuit now pending in Virginia seeking to have Virginia's gay marriage ban struck down and a recent ruling in Ohio, the Virginian Pilot calls out for marriage equality now and rightly identifies what motivated the passage of Virginia's foul Marshall-Newman Amendment which wrote discrimination into the Bill of Rights of the Virginia Constitution: malice and animus. Not surprisingly, some of the local knuckle draggers are none too happy with the truth being stated based on their delusional comments (which underscore the malice and animus cited). Here are highlights from the main editorial:
The ballot measure [the Marshall-Newman Amendment] was a political tactic to drive voter turnout. It was crafted by Republican strategists, designed to leverage social conservatism in the name of partisan advantage. It worked to a degree in both states, although former Sen. George Allen might disagree.
The human cost was and remains immense. Gay couples were marginalized, unwelcome in their own states. Even minor legal arrangements within a family were subject to challenge.
No matter the rationalizations mouthed by organizations like the Family Foundation, the basic truth is that each vote excluded homosexual Virginians from fundamental rights because of how they were born.
As has become increasingly clear, history will look unkindly upon the day the amendment was passed and will hold its most vicious and opportunistic supporters accountable.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court began the process of unwinding such discriminatory measures.
It is only a matter of time before that process effects change in Virginia, where the constitutional amendment that carries the names of Sen. Steve Newman and Del. Bob Marshall will be undone. This week, it arrived in Ohio, courtesy of a federal judge.
"This is not a complicated case," wrote U.S. District Judge Timothy Black. "The issue is whether the State of Ohio can discriminate against same sex marriages lawfully solemnized out of state, when Ohio law has historically and unambiguously provided that the validity of a marriage is determined by whether it complies with the law of the jurisdiction where it was celebrated."
Even though Black's opinion came in an Ohio case, the same reasoning applies in Virginia, which has also historically respected marriages from other states. Even though there's no such institution as a common-law marriage in Virginia, for example, the commonwealth recognizes such unions from other states.
As Black wrote, the only reason to refuse to recognize gay unions performed in states that permit them - as the Supreme Court found in the United States vs. Windsor - is to "impose inequality." Furthermore, the judge made clear that Ohio didn't come close to meeting the standard required for withholding such basic rights:
"Even if there were proffered some attendant governmental purpose to discriminate against gay couples, other than to effect pure animus, it is difficult to imagine how it could outweigh the severe burden imposed by the ban imposed on same-sex couples legally married in other states. Families deserve the highest level of protection under the First Amendment right of association."
Anti-gay amendments - as in Ohio and Virginia and 29 other states - undo that protection. They impose inequality out of malice and animus, elevating the will of the majority over the rights of individuals. Thankfully, the days of such measures are numbered.
Unfortunately, The Family Foundation and its triumvirate of hate merchants on the GOP statewide ticket - Ken Cuccinelli, E.W. Jackson, and Mark Obenshain - care nothing about equality or the U. S. Constitution, Instead, their sole goal is to impose Christofascist religious views on all Virginians.
