Virginian Pilot: Gay Marriage Bans are Indefensible

Yesterday's main editorial in the Virginian Pilot lauded North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper who seeks to stop that state's defense of its anti-gay animus inspired Amendment 1.  The Pilot also went on to state emphatically that gay marriage bans are "indefensible" and have only one real goal: to harm and stigmatize same sex couples.  Every other supposed justification is merely a smoke screen for the real motivation.  Here are excerpts from the editorial:

With this week's federal appeals court ruling affirming that Virginia's ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper offered some badly needed plain talk to folks pressing him to defend a similar ban in his own state.

"Our attorneys have vigorously defended North Carolina marriage law, which is their job," Cooper said, shortly after receiving word of the three-judge panel's decision in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

"But today we know our law almost surely will be overturned as well. Simply put, it is time to stop making arguments we will lose and instead move forward, knowing that the ultimate resolution will likely come from the U.S. Supreme Court."

For his pragmatism and common sense, Cooper was excoriated, much like his Virginia counterpart, Mark Herring, has been since announcing six months ago that he wouldn't defend Virginia's ban.

But the legal basis for their position is sound, as more than 20 consecutive rulings have demonstrated since 2013, when the Supreme Court invalidated discriminatory restrictions in the Defense of Marriage Act. It is nonsensical - and a waste of resources - for states to continue litigating similar cases in lower courts with an expectation of a different result, particularly when that state is in the same federal circuit. Like Virginia, North Carolina is also part of the Fourth Circuit.

The American Psychological Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychiatric Association, National Association of Social Workers, and the Virginia Psychological Association argued in legal briefs that there was no evidence to support claims that recognition of same-sex unions imperiled children or society.

However, the groups noted, "by preventing same-sex couples from marrying, the Virginia Marriage Laws actually harm the children of same-sex couples by stigmatizing their families and robbing them of the stability, economic security, and togetherness that marriage fosters."

As Herring and Cooper have noted, and as courts have ruled, such laws are indefensible.

Victoria Cobb and her neurotic/psychotic followers at The Family Foundation and similar groups and in Catholic bishoprics will have to find another way to feel good about themselves.  The days of making gays inferior under the civil laws are on the wane.