D**S
发帖数: 24887 | 1 http://nyti.ms/LKYVce
Mark R. Herring, the Virginia attorney general, center, said that Virginia
had been on the wrong side of other civil rights fights, including
segregation. Bob Brown/Richmond Times-Dispatch, via Associated Press
Asserting that Virginia had too often been on the “wrong side” of justice
on civil rights matters, the state attorney general asked a federal court on
Thursday to invalidate the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, calling the
law unconstitutional and oppressive.
The move by the attorney general, Mark R. Herring, a Democrat who took
office this month, was the first indication of how consequential last
November’s elections in Virginia, in which Democrats won all three top
elected positions from Republicans, may turn out to be. Mr. Herring, a
former state senator, narrowly defeated Mark Obenshain, a Republican state
senator.
The decision to drop support for the gay marriage ban was an abrupt shift
from the positions taken in the past by the state’s socially conservative
elected officials, and put Virginia on a path to be the first Southern state
to allow same-sex marriage. Republican officials swiftly denounced the
decision, calling for Mr. Herring’s resignation.
At a news conference in Richmond, Mr. Herring said the ban violated the 14th
Amendment right to due process and equal protection, an argument that has
been the basis of successful legal challenges to same-sex marriage
prohibitions in other states.
“I cannot and will not defend a law that violates Virginians’ fundamental
constitutional rights,” Mr. Herring said. To do so, he said, “would be a
violation of the law and my oath.”
Mr. Herring cited legal cases in which he said Virginia’s leadership had
failed its residents by arguing against school desegregation in Brown v. the
Board of Education, interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia, and women’
s admission to the Virginia Military Institute, a state-supported military
college, in United States v. Virginia.
“Too many times in our history, our citizens have had to lead the way on
civil rights while their leaders stood against them,” Mr. Herring said. “
This will not be another instance. It is time for the commonwealth to be on
the right side of history and the right side of the law.”
The chairman of Virginia’s Republican Party, Pat Mullins, said in a
statement that Mr. Herring had turned the issue into “a political farce.”
“The first job of Virginia’s attorney general is to be the commonwealth’s
law firm, and to defend the duly passed laws of the commonwealth,” Mr.
Mullins said. “If Mark Herring doesn’t want to defend this case, he should
resign.”
In 2006, Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment that defined
marriage as being between a man and a woman. Mr. Herring acknowledged
Thursday that he had voted for the legislation as a state senator before
having a change of heart. “I wouldn’t want the state telling my son or
daughter who they could marry,” he said.
He said he now found the ban “oppressive.”
The move follows recent rulings by federal judges in Utah and Oklahoma that
struck down laws forbidding same-sex marriage in those states. The rulings
came in a legal landscape that has been rapidly changing since the United
States Supreme Court abolished California’s same-sex marriage law last year.
Mr. Herring’s announcement, 12 days after he was sworn in, marked a sharp
political swing from the previous attorney general, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II
, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for governor on a platform that
included opposing same-sex marriage.
Virginia’s new Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffe, has tread cautiously
so far in his politically divided state, announcing cabinet appointments
with bipartisan appeal.
In announcing his decision, Mr. Herring cited the conservative jurists
Robert H. Bork, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Antonin Scalia
as approving of attorneys general not defending a state law they deemed a
violation of the state constitution. Mr. Herring also cited a case that Mr.
Cuccinelli chose not to defend because he had found a state law
unconstitutional.
As the state legislature commences its annual session in Richmond, Mr.
McAuliffe may face rising opposition to his agenda from the Republican-
dominated House of Representatives, whose membership is conservative on
social issues and are opposed to Mr. McAuliffe’s priority of expanding
Medicaid under the federal health care law. The House’s top Republican,
William J. Howell, said in a statement that Mr. Herring had disregarded the
state’s “legislative and democratic processes” by his decision, setting a
“dangerous precedent.”
Mr. Herring said he decided to make the announcement on Thursday because
oral arguments in one of the two current legal challenges to the ban are
scheduled in federal court in Norfolk on Jan. 30.
The plaintiffs in the case are two couples: Timothy Bostic, an English
professor at Old Dominion University, and his partner, Tony C. London; and
Carol Schall, director of the Virginia Autism Resource Center at Virginia
Commonwealth University, and Mary Townley, who were legally married in
California in 2008.
Dr. Schall and Ms. Townley have a 15-year-old daughter, but because Virginia
does not recognize their marriage, Dr. Schall is not afforded a number of
parental and spousal rights in the state.
The couples are being represented by Theodore B. Olson and David Boies, who
successfully argued against California’s same-sex marriage ban before the
Supreme Court last year. | D**S
发帖数: 24887 | 2 Hopefully this move will add another significant blow to the LGBT rights'
status quo of the South. | D**S
发帖数: 24887 | 3 Some Republicans in Virginia believe that the Attorney General has an
unconditional obligation to defend the state law despite the nature of the
latter. Hence Mr. Herring is "not doing his job". If this logic stands then
the next step would for him to be impeached? |
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