Times Dispatch Slams Dissenting 4th Circuit Judge

Things are indeed changing in Virginia when the Richmond Times Dispatch - in many ways the most reactionary conservative newspaper in the Commonwealth - slams 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Paul Niemeyer for refusing to find Virginia's gay marriage bans to be unconstitutional.  Thankfully, the two other judges of the panel disagreed with Niemeyer who seemingly wants to be remembered among the ranks of the bigots of the Virginia Supreme Court who twice upheld Virgina's ban on interracial marriage until the U.S. Supreme Court ended the bigots' intransigence with its ruling in Loving v. Virginia.  Here are highlights from the Times Dispatch's take down of Niemeyer:

Yesterday’s welcome decision by the 4th Circuit striking down Virginia’s ban on gay marriage was surprising only for its lack of unanimity. Gay marriage has been marching to victory after victory in the courts, as each of the fallacious arguments against it has come up short.
Dissenting Judge Paul Niemeyer resorted to one of those fallacies in his dissent, contending that gay marriage does not simply recognize the participation of gay and lesbian couples in the fundamental right to marry, but rather creates a “newly proposed relationship” just for them. Virginia put forward a similar argument in defense of its law against interracial marriage. But the Supreme Court rejected that reasoning in the landmark Loving v. Virginia case, when it held that blacks and whites could not be kept from exercising their existing right to marry based on the race of their chosen spouse.

Opponents of gay marriage also advance several other reasons for banning it, from concerns about procreation to a reverence for tradition. The arguments fail on their own merits – or, rather, their lack of merit. But even if they did not, they cannot trump the Constitution. (As a Cato Institute amicus brief argued, if tradition could supersede the Constitution the U.S. would still have segregated schools.) The 14th Amendment insists that government shall not deny “to any person” the “equal protection of the laws.” Yesterday’s ruling is a splendid triumph for that essential principle.