New Virginia Attorney General Drops Defense of Gay Marriage Ban

"This man only took office 1 month ago, he should be fired for stating that he will not hold the law. As a matter of fact, you should be put in jail because it is duty to uphold the existing laws not try to change them create new ones" Jason Price

By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and TRIP GABRIEL

January 23, 2014

Asserting that Virginia had too often been on the “wrong side” of justice on civil rights matters, the state attorney general asked a federal court on Thursday to invalidate the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, calling the law unconstitutional and oppressive.
The move by the attorney general, Mark R. Herring, a Democrat who took office early this month, was the first indication of how consequential last November’s elections in Virginia, in which Democrats won all three top elected positions from Republicans, may turn out to be. Mr. Herring, a former state senator, narrowly defeated Mark Obenshain, a Republican state senator.
The decision to drop support for the gay marriage ban was an abrupt shift from the positions taken in the past by the state’s socially conservative elected officials, and put Virginia on a path to be the first Southern state to allow same-sex marriage. Republican officials swiftly denounced the decision, calling for Mr. Herring’s resignation.
At a news conference in Richmond, Mr. Herring said the ban violated the 14th Amendment right to due process and equal protection, an argument that has been the basis of successful legal challenges to same-sex marriage prohibitions in other states.
“I cannot and will not defend a law that violates Virginians’ fundamental constitutional rights,” Mr. Herring said. To do so, he said, “would be a violation of the law and my oath.”
Mr. Herring cited legal cases in which he said Virginia’s leadership had failed its residents by arguing against school desegregation in Brown v. the Board of Education, interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia, and women’s admission to the Virginia Military Institute, a state-supported military college, in United States v. Virginia.
“Too many times in our history, our citizens have had to lead the way on civil rights while their leaders stood against them,” Mr. Herring said. “This will not be another instance. It is time for the commonwealth to be on the right side of history and the right side of the law.”
The chairman of Virginia’s Republican Party, Pat Mullins, said in a statement that Mr. Herring had turned the issue into “a political farce.”