Sens. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Tim Kaine (D-VA) urged the Virginia state legislature on Monday to repeal an amendment in the state constitution that bans same-sex marriage in the commonwealth.
Warner and Kaine, both former governors, claimed that they had concerns about the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which established the right to same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015.
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The senators stated they were worried that many Virginians would lose the right to “marry the person they loved,” if the Supreme Court overturned the ruling as it did in Roe v. Wade last year when the court returned the matter of abortion back to individual states.
“If Obergefell is overturned, then LGBTQ Virginians will likely lose the right to marry the person they love unless the General Assembly repeals the ban in Virginia’s constitution,” Warner and Kaine wrote in a letter to the state’s General Assembly, according to the Hill. “Virginia’s circuit courts would be prohibited from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples due to the prohibition in the Commonwealth’s constitution.”
The senators pointed at Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s arguments that the Constitution’s Due Process Clause does not secure a right to an abortion or any other substantive rights, and they urged the court to apply that reasoning to other landmark cases, including the same-sex marriage law.
President Joe Biden, however, signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law in December, which enshrined certain federal protections for same-sex couples. Among the protections is a requirement that all states and the federal government acknowledge and recognize a union as legal as long as it was legal in the state that the marriage occurred in.
The Senate of Virginia voted Monday in support of Joint Resolution 242, which was the first step to repealing the amendment, which defines marriage in Virginia as “between one man and one woman,” according to the Richmond-Times Dispatch. The amendment was ratified in 2006.
“We are encouraged by proposals in both the Virginia House of Delegates and Senate to repeal the constitutional provision,” the senators said. “It is long past time that Virginia’s governing document conveys to same-sex marriages the same freedoms, rights, and responsibilities that are afforded to all other constitutional marriages. We urge you to work with your colleagues to advance legislation for a referendum that would fully protect Virginia’s LGBTQ couples.”
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A second bill in the state senate that saw marriage regardless of gender legally recognized in the state also passed on Monday in a 25-12 vote, according to the Richmond-Times Dispatch.
