The Commonwealth of Virginia does not like gay people. It really really doesn't like them. And it wants to make sure they know this ... if not precisely that they understand exactly to what extent.
The law is short, only 70 words long.
But the newly passed amendment to Virginia's Affirmation of Marriage Act has caused an uproar among gays and lesbians who are unsure how it will affect them when it takes effect July 1....
New law may void same-sex benefits
By CHRISTINA NUCKOLS, The Virginian-Pilot
© May 22, 2004
After a long struggle with her employer, Lisa Z. Morgan was allowed to extend her health insurance this year to her lesbian partner, Niely , and their two children.
But a new state law banning civil unions, partnerships and other contracts between same-sex couples could invalidate those insurance benefits when it becomes effective on July 1 – and could make Virginia the most restrictive state in the country for gays who want some of the same legal benefits as heterosexual couples.
“I’m afraid that after having them for only a few months, they’ll be jerked away from us and my children will be uninsured,” said Morgan, a Norfolk systems analyst whose children are 9 and 4 .
The General Assembly passed the law this winter in reaction to progress made by gays and lesbians in other states to secure official recognition for same-sex marriages. The marriage movement gained a foothold four years ago, when Vermont began granting civil unions – a legal status similar to marriage – and culminated this week when Massachusetts became the first state to permit gay marriages. [...] Virginia’s law, however, could be the broadest restriction on gay rights in the 50 states unless courts act to narrow its scope, said Greg Nevins, a senior staff attorney with Lambda Legal, a national organization that pursues court actions to protect and expand gay rights.
The law says, “A civil union, partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage is prohibited. Any such civil union, partnership contract or other arrangement entered into by persons of the same sex in another state or jurisdiction shall be void in all respects in Virginia and any contractual rights created thereby shall be void and unenforceable.”
Gov. Mark R. Warner attempted to amend the bill last month to eliminate its sweeping references to contracts and other agreements, but legislators overruled him and approved the original wording. [...] The author of the law, Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Prince William, said it is worded to prevent any type of civil union or domestic partnership from being recognized in Virginia. [...] Marshall said the Virginia law is intended to ban child custody and guardianship agreements between same-sex partners. He said he was not attempting to void insurance policies, wills, powers of attorney or medical agreements, and he does not believe the law is that broad.
“You could designate Saddam Hussein as your durable power of attorney if you want to,” he said. “You can leave everything in your will to your parrot.”
Marshall’s intentions, however, are irrelevant now that the legislation has been adopted as state law. It will be up to the courts to determine the meaning of the law, and no one is certain of the outcome.
According to one of the legal experts cited in the article, the law would likely not survive a federal constitutional challenge, both because it fails equal protection -- it treats gay and straight couples differently, which was one of the explicit tests that sodomy laws failed in Lawrence vs Texas -- and the language applies to all sorts of contracts that the state has no authority to refuse to recognize, such as custody agreements and wills.
That Virginia is so outstandingly hostile to the concept of gay people having legal rights is not terribly surprising; despite the US Supreme Court's statement that sodomy laws are unconstitutional, Virginia declines to acknowledge that fact:
Despite the Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence vs. Texas declaring state sodomy laws unconstitutional, Virginia continues to prosecute gay men under its old law by targeting those who solicit sodomy in public but don’t engage in any public sexual acts. Meanwhile, lawmakers are expected next month to study options for a new law intended to bring Virginia into compliance with the high court’s ruling by prohibiting both homosexual and heterosexual public sex while maintaining the state’s sodomy statute.
Since the court’s June ruling, the prosecutions have continued. Twenty-six men were indicted in July for soliciting for sex in an adult bookstore in Harrisonburg. [...] Greg Nevins, senior staff attorney at Lambda Legal, defended a man charged with solicitation of sodomy in Virginia Beach after the Supreme Court ruling. He said that the state’s sodomy statute is moribund after the Lawrence ruling and prosecutors and law enforcers are unfairly targeting men soliciting in public for sodomy but not publicly engaging in sodomy.
“Virginia does not have a public sodomy statute,” Nevins said. “What they have done post-Lawrence is try to criminalize a request by using a law that on its face says all requests, all solicitations of sodomy are criminal. You have the right to ask for something that is an illegal act but Virginia prosecutors are still trying to use those laws to target speech that’s protected by the First Amendment.”
But not all sodomy prosecutions have resulted in convictions. A Rockingham County Circuit Court judge dismissed sodomy solicitation charges in two separate trials last Tuesday after ruling prosecutors lacked evidence to prove the crimes, the Virginia Daily News-Record reported. The two men, Jessie Lee Morris, 59 of Grottoes, and Justin Wayne Sites, 47, of Crimora, are two of the 26 men arrested in the Harrisonburg sting operation this summer.
Despite the fact that Virginia has perfectly good indecent exposure laws -- and despite the fact that if solicitation for sex in and of itself were illegal, every single adult in the state would deserve to be arrested -- Virginia continues to use these laws to persecute --er, pardon, prosecute people. (I am certainly not defending the right of people to have sex in public spaces; there is no such right. However, solicitation to have sex, in public or private, is not in and of itself technically an illegal act.)
(A side note regarding the title of this entry: Virginia's theoretically former state song, "Carry me back to old Virginny," is really spectacularly vile, for all that it was written by an African American. One wonders if the writer was being a bit sarcastic, and somehow nobody ever noticed. To be sure, life for blacks was considerably different back when he wrote it; he might have been nostalgic for the secure days of slavery ... or perhaps not. In any event, Virginia was searching for a new state song, but the search was suspended, and no new song has ever been chosen.) Thus, at state occasions, one would guess that either no song at all is played, or, more likely, the state song not-quite-emeritus-yet is. One suspects that these days, the song is never ever EVER sung.)
Posted by iain at May 24, 2004 05:09 PM
