And we pretty much stay out of Virginia for just that reason. Why spend our money in a state that’s hostile to families like ours? So far, we haven’t stumbled upon a reason we need to go to Virginia for anything, and Maryland has managed not to be driven down the same path as Virginia. Heck, our Republican (hopefully soon to be former) governer even found he had to at least give the impression that he thought gay couples should have some rights, if he wanted to get re-elected.

In a custody case involving a lesbian couple with a civil union entered into in Vermont, a judge overturned the parental rights of one of the women, and ignored the fact that a Vermont court already had issued a ruling and therefore had jurisdiction in the case. The Virginia court ruled that the public policy of Virginia was not to recognize any of the rights flowing from the civil union. In doing so, it flagrantly ignored the federal Uniform Child Custody law that is supposed to prevent exactly what one of these parents did - kidnapping a child and fleeing to another state where they think they will get a better decision.

The language of the proposed amendment goes much farther than the law cited in this case. Here’s the text of the second paragraph:

This Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage. Nor shall this Commonwealth or its political subdivisions create or recognize another union, partnership, or other legal status to which is assigned the rights, benefits, obligations, qualities, or effects of marriage.

You can see that this does not specify as a “legal status” any particular aggregation of rights and benefits obtained via private contracts - something that would replicate the provisions of a domestic partnership, for instance. The use of the word “or” opens up to challenge any contractual rights or obligations if there is the “intent” to “approximate” a marriage-like relationship. This language is broader than that of any other so-called “marriage amendment” that has been passed in any other state. It would apply to ALL unmarried couples, gay and straight, and the concerns about it are not a bogeyman.

You can read the executive summary of a legal memo signed by over 100 lawyers and former Attorneys General here, that outlines the many legal concerns raised by this deliberately broad and ambiguous language.

Over at the Republic of T, Terrance has been chronicling battles in Wisconsin and Virginia over the interpretation of either Defense of Marriage amendments or alterations thereto. The argument is wearily familiar: that the text of the legislation is ov…

I certainly can’t think of–or with minor research, find–a single bit of even partial precedent in caselaw or in statute to support such a fear. (State Attorney Generals are, of course, allowed to issue opinion papers on whatever they like, but those don’t have the binding force of law.) But I’ll bite: what precedent is being relied upon?

Now, it’s true that private contractual relationships can’t get around everything (such as hospital admissions policies mentioned above). But actually overturning existing private contracts? That’s a bogeyman. Just because there isn’t a test case yet doesn’t mean one can’t make a rational guess as to how the case would come out. I’d be very surprised if any of the lawyers predicting these doom and gloom scenarios would actually put money on the outcome of what you’re calling the “inevitable” trials.

It’s quite a stretch to go from “gay couples can’t enter into marriage or produce a set of documents that create a marriage-like arrangement” to “any contractual arrangement between two homosexuals that seems to mimic any aspect of marriage is void as a matter of policy.” Any attempt to use a DOMA to overturn private contractual behavior starts to look very dangerous indeed: many straight couples, and indeed non-intimate couples, may choose to make such contracts, and it would be a rare court that would wish to cause that much uncertainty.

So yeah, this is a bogeyman. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a bogeyman that gets favorable press in national papers. Heck, it’s a bogeyman that makes for great copy on a blog. But if there’s a Virginia lawyer who will hand on heart say that they expect the Virginia Supreme Court to annul (or rather, affirm the annulment of) a benefit plan between a private employer and employee regarding domestic partner benefits, I’m flabbergasted. They’d have to be the type who enjoys taking very long odds in Vegas.

And if it’s actually causing an “exodus” . . . wow.

*Incidentally, a quick review of the Michigan Attorney General’s brief regarding same-sex partnerships in the City of Kalamazoo very quickly lends itself to an easy way around the opinion. So long as the “domestic partnership benefits” were available to everyone, whether married or not, who was in a relationship and hadn’t been in another for six months (roughly UofM’s policy), then it no longer “references the attributes of a marriage.” Of course, there’s a good reason for not doing this–expense–but it does get around the definitional problem.

From my article on the same subject:

I can hear some plantation owner in the south voicing a paraphrased version of Cobb’s argument pre-Civil War: “I think it’s extremely sad the slaves would leave the plantation because they were never allowed to be free anyway.”

Heck, we are even nervous about visiting my homestate of Virginia as a family.. or individually for that matter.

Not that anything would happen to us, but if something did… we might be without recourse.

Sad.

Not long after the (Republican) Attorney General issued an opinion that DP benefits could no longer be part of contracts at state universities. Exactly as all the opponents of the measure predicted.