Virginia Ban on Same-Sex Marriage Struck Down
The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Virginia’s definition of marriage as between a man and a woman – a 2006 constitutional amendment approved by voters 57% to 43%. The Associated Press reported, “The court itself also highlighted the debate that pits moral values and the idea of equality against states’ rights, recognizing that same-sex marriage ‘makes some people deeply uncomfortable,’ but argued in its ruling Monday that those concerns are ‘not legitimate bases for denying same-sex couples due process and equal protection of the laws.’” The ruling is part of a snowballing and troubling trend. When Connecticut legalized same-sex marriage in 2008, for example, the issue of marriage was a state’s issue, decided by the state’s Supreme Court. Today, these state-level constitutional issues are being decided by the federal legal system, and are providing precedents on the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Leftists’ strategy is to collect these precedents. More…