Federal Judge Overturns Virginia’s Same-Sex Marriage Ban

By ERIK ECKHOLMFEB. 14, 2014
NY Times


A federal judge on Thursday evening declared that Virginia’s ban on
same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, in the strongest legal reversal
yet of restrictive marriage amendments that exist throughout the South.

“Our Constitution declares that ‘all men’ are created equal,” wrote
Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen of United States District Court for the
Eastern District of Virginia, in Norfolk. “Surely this means all of us.”

The ruling, which overturned a constitutional amendment adopted by
Virginia voters in 2006 as well as previous laws, also said that
Virginia must respect same-sex marriages that were carried out legally
in other states.

But opponents of same-sex marriage have vowed to appeal the decision to
the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond,
and Judge Wright Allen stayed the execution of Thursday’s ruling pending
the appeal.

This week, a federal judge in Kentucky ruled that the state must honor
same-sex marriages legally performed in other states, but the ruling did
not address Kentucky’s own ban on such marriages.

If the Court of Appeals upholds Thursday’s decision, the repercussions
in the South could be wide. Similar amendments limiting marriage to a
man and a woman would most likely be voided in other states of the
Fourth Circuit, including North Carolina, South Carolina and West
Virginia. (Maryland, the fifth member, approved same-sex marriage in 2012.)
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