....sad about The Supreme's ruling to let gay marriages in five states stand.

William J. Howell, the Republican speaker of the Virginia House of
Delegates, said in a statement that he was disappointed by the court’s
ruling, and he criticized Mark Herring, the state’s Democratic attorney
general, for refusing to defend the state’s ban on marriage, adopted in
a constitutional amendment in 2006.

“I am a strong supporter of traditional marriage. There are many
Virginians who agree with me and some who do not,� Mr. Howell said.
“Regardless of how one feels about marriage, we should all agree that
Virginians deserve to have their voices heard and votes vigorously
defended in court. That did not happen in this case.�

Mr. Herring waved aside the criticism during an impromptu news
conference on the steps of the Arlington courthouse. Flanked by gay
members of the Arlington county board and the State Legislature, Mr.
Herring hailed the court’s ruling.

In an interview after the news conference, Mr. Herring said Virginia had
long been on what he considered to be the wrong side of history, citing
the civil rights cases of Brown vs. Board of Education and the 1996 case
that struck down the male-only admissions policy at the Virginia
Military Institute.

“I was determined to make sure that the injustices of Virginia’s
position in those past cases were not repeated again,� Mr. Herring said.


(Indeed, Virginia has a long and sordid history of denying civil rights
to its citizens. Herring did not mention Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1
(1967), was a landmark civil rights decision of the United States
Supreme Court which invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage.

From Wiki:

The case was brought by Mildred Loving, a black woman, and Richard
Loving, a white man, who had been sentenced to a year in prison in
Virginia for marrying each other. Their marriage violated the Virginia's
anti-miscegenation statute, the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which
prohibited marriage between people classified as "white" and people
classified as "colored". The Supreme Court's unanimous decision held
this prohibition was unconstitutional, overturning Pace v. Alabama
(1883) and ending all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the
United States.

The decision was followed by an increase in interracial marriages in the
U.S., and is remembered annually on Loving Day, June 12. It has been the
subject of two movies as well as songs. Beginning in 2013, it was cited
as precedent in U.S. federal court decisions holding restrictions on
same-sex marriage in the United States unconstitutional.

Have a nice day, Speaker Howell.)

--
“My heart goes out to the people of Ebola.�
Sarah Palin