The Daily Press Is Schizophrenic on Gay Marriage

Personally, I am starting to think that the editorial board of the Daily Press is schizophrenic.  Or that it suffers from group amnesia.  How else to describe the editorials unleashed lambasting Attorney General Mark Herring for refusing to defend Virginia's unconstitutional same sex marriage ban.  The editorial board would have preferred that Herring ignore judicial decisions handed down AFTER last November's state wide elections that significantly changed the legal landscape not to mention key language in the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in United States v. Windsor that eviscerated the very arguments put forth by former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli to defend Virginia's anti-gay discrimination.  Now, in the wake of the ruling in Bostic v. Rainey, the same editorial board commends U.S. District Court Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen for striking down the same same sex marriage ban that it wanted Herring to defend.  Either the ban is unconstitutional - which it is - or it is not.  You cannot have it both ways.  Here are highlights from the more recent editorial which acts as if the prior ones had never been written:

Today, the [Marshall-Newman] amendment teeters on the edge of irrelevancy, undone as much by legal argument as by changing public opinion.

The latest blow came last week when a federal judge struck down the law, but stayed the ruling pending further appeal. As supporters of marriage equality, we were pleased with the decision and maintain that eliminating such a discriminatory provision puts Virginia on the right side of history.

Like many states across the South, the commonwealth adopted its same-sex marriage law to reflect the Biblical definition of traditional marriage. But when it comes to government, marriage is a contract, not a sacrament. It should be grounded in law, not in scripture.

Defining marriage as only between a man and a woman uses sexual orientation to discriminate against one group of Americans. It says heterosexual couples alone should be entitled to file joint tax returns, have visitation rights in hospitals or be a spouse's beneficiary.

Lesbians and gays cannot enjoy those benefits because they do not have access to a marriage license. If they are married in a state recognizing same-sex marriage, those unions are not recognized here.

In her Wednesday ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen concluded the law violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which provides that states may not deny "any person" the "equal protection of the laws." The clause, adopted in 1868, mirrors the limitation on federal government our Founding Fathers placed in the Fifth Amendment.

Yet, in going a step further, the judge tied this lawsuit to the groundbreaking 1967 Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia, striking down a law barring individuals of different races to be married in the commonwealth. It's a powerful argument with resonance here.
Nor can jurists like Judge Wright Allen set aside precedent set by higher courts. By all accounts, the judge here is religious and might otherwise embrace a traditional definition of marriage. But the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling last year on the Defense of Marriage Act contributes to a growing body of law favoring equality over marriage protection.

This case will continue its legal journey, next to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and possibly after to the U.S. Supreme Court.

We continue to believe eliminating discrimination from the Constitution would be the best and most fair outcome for the commonwealth. We hope to see that realized.

So jurists such as federal judges cannot ignore rulings by higher courts but attorney generals not only can, but must according to the Daily Press.  The editorial board needs to get its head out of its ass.