Republicans Resist Repeal of Unconstitutional Gay Marriage Bans

In the past at social occasions former Republican colleagues have asked me when I will return to the Republican Party.  Now that the GOP is the Trump party - a Senate acquittal of Trump will irreversibly confirm this - my answer is "never,"  But there's another reason I cannot be a Republican even if Trump and the deplorables who comprise his base were rejected, the GOP as a whole remains committed to depriving me and others in the LGBT community of basic civil rights.  The GOP national platform continues to oppose same sex marriage (the husband and I were married in Washington, DC, just shy of seven years ago) and a majority of Virginia Republican members of the General Assembly likewise remain opposed to marriage equality and oppose the repeal of Virginia's unconstitutional Marshall-Newman Amendment to the Virginia Constitution that sought to bar any recognition of same sex relationships. A piece at NBC News looks at the effort to repeal this toxic constitutional amendment.  Here are highlights:

Even though it’s been more than five years since the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex couples have the right to marry “on the same terms and conditions as opposite-sex couples,” dozens of states still have constitutional amendments on the books that ban gay marriage.

Virginia is one of those states, and its first openly LGBTQ legislator is leading the charge to ax the outdated law.

Democratic state Sen. Adam Ebbin is sponsoring SJ 270, which would replace language in the state Constitution defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman with an affirmative statement that the right to marry is fundamental “regardless of the sex or gender of the parties to the marriage.”

On Feb. 5, SJ 270 cleared the Senate by a margin of 24 to 12. One day earlier, HJ 582, the House version, passed 60 to 33.

In Virginia, though, overturning a constitutional amendment is a two-year process — one that requires two separate General Assembly sessions separated by a general election to pass identical bills before a measure is put on the ballot for a public vote.

Since the landmark Obergefell ruling, at least eight states have tried to remove similarly unenforceable marriage bans, according to the Equality Federation. In November, Nevada became the first to do so, with 62 percent of voters backing the measure.

But 30 states still have such prohibitions written into their constitutions, according to the Movement Advancement Project. Sixteen of them also ban civil unions, and two, including Virginia’s, prohibit any legal recognition of gay relationships.

But homophobic laws can have a long shelf life in Virginia. Although the Supreme Court ruled that sodomy bans were unconstitutional in 2003’s Lawrence vs. Texas decision, it took a full decade for Virginia’s to be struck down — and even then it was by a federal appeals court, not by legislators.

[T]he Marshall-Newman Amendment, the measure further barred any recognition of unmarried couples “that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage.”Civil rights advocates argued its broad language could be used to invalidate living wills, powers of attorney and even property agreements between same-sex partners.  . . . . In an opinion piece in The Washington Post, gay conservative Jonathan Rauch branded the amendment a “Jim Crow” law for the 21st century.

In January 2014, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring announced his office would not defend the amendment in federal court.

[I]in June 2015, the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges guaranteed the freedom to marry on the federal level.

Last March, the Virginia General Assembly repealed two laws banning same-sex marriage. But neither that nor the Obergefell ruling can remove what Ebbin calls “a stain” on the Virginia Constitution.

Democrats in Virginia have moved quickly to advance LGBTQ rights since gaining control of the General Assembly in 2019: Last year, the Legislature banned so-called conversion therapy on minors and passed the Virginia Values Act, making it the first Southern state to pass anti-discrimination protections for the LGBTQ community.

There’s also support among voters: In 2014, 50 percent of Virginians supported same-sex marriage, according to the Public Religion Research Institute. By 2017, the last year the group polled on the question, that had jumped to 60 percent.

In 2020, a national polI by the group found a record 70 percent of Americans supported same-sex marriage, including about half of Republicans.

“They realize gay people can get married and the sky won’t fall,” Ebbin said. “So unless the Legislature goes through some drastic change, I predict that we’ll pass it.”

State Sen. Amanda Chase, a Trump loyalist running for governor, told the Virginia Mercury she voted against Ebbin’s measure to take “a stand for traditional values.”

Delegate Kirk Cox, the other Republican lawmaker running for governor, opposed Sickle’s bill in the House. Though the proposal includes a provision allowing clergy to refuse to perform any wedding, a spokesperson for the lawmaker told the Mercury that “Delegate Cox’s faith informs his views of the nature of marriage.”

“In the competition to demonstrate who is the most extreme and out of touch, Cox and Chase are neck and neck,” Anna Scholl, executive director of Progress Virginia, said in a statement. “This vote against marriage equality is just the latest example.”

On the national level, the Republican Party’s national platform — which hasn’t changed since 2016 — defends “natural marriage, the union of one man and one woman” as the cornerstone of the American family, and affirms that “every child deserves a married mom and dad.”

The GOP headquarters did not respond to a request for comment about Virginia’s proposals.