I guess my fellow Hampton Roads bloggers Insider and hrconservative must have had a page missing from their newspapers today :lol:. Both of them chose to focus on the opinion piece written by Victoria Cobb, executive director of the Family Foundation, and a supporter of the Marshall Newman amendment.
There is a reason they call this section “Other Opinions” and not “Other Facts.” Cobb offered her opinion, and not any facts. Had my fellow HR bloggers bothered to read the facing page, they would have seen the Pilot editorial about the Vermont vs Virginia custody case. From that editorial (emphasis mine):
This case, unfortunately, will likely end up in the federal system, a trip that will take so long that Isabella is unlikely to see her Vermont mother until she’s old enough to drive there.
That, of course, is the point of this bitter fight, as it is in far too many heterosexual marriages that end in divorce.
The difference is that in marriage, the federal government – and the states – have specific laws that forbid the kind of jurisdiction-shopping that has gone on in the Miller-Jenkins case.
Rather than follow any of those well-worn rules, though, a Virginia trial judge instead relied on an untested statute designed to strip contractual privileges from homosexual couples.
(If that sounds familiar, it should. A proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot would insert similar sentiments into the state constitution.)
Cobb says that those of us Voting NO are resorting to scare tactics. Really? Here is a real case, one in which one party decided to opinion-shop and found a sympathetic Virginia judge. (Now I would call this judge an activist judge, but I’ll bet those voting yes see him as just doing his job.)
But the amendment makes the situation worse: because instead of just stripping the contractual rights of gays, it applies to all unmarried couples. That’s what that second paragraph says:
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.
No reference there to gays. Just “unmarried individuals.” That, my friends, is not the current law and anyone claiming that this amendment only codifies current law needs to head back to school and take another reading comprehension course.
Better yet – just Vote NO, Virginia!
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
A magazine gave me an assignment last year to write some questions for an interview with Victoria Cobb. So, I had to read a bunch of her thoughts on marriage, civil unions, the dangers gays pose to society, etc. It was tough duty.
Since then I watched an interview with her on PBS one night. She comes off as nutty as Pat Robertson. I’m amazed that serious conservatives are willing to use her as a spokesperson.
At some point, Victoria and Co. will have to give up on using at least these particular lies. Or will they?
No, the amendment is not the same as current law. The evidence is there in black and white.
No, the current law has been used to invalidate private contractual rights. It’s not a scare tactic, it’s already happened. Here’s the evidence.
You have to wonder whether it’s a flaw in mental capacity or morality that would compel a person to doggedly repeat these lies, after they have been shown the evidence over and over again.
Vivian, if you’re looking to the Pilot’s editorial page for facts, I feel sorry for ya.
And if you are looking to Victoria Cobb for facts, I feel sorry for you.
Actually, Victoria Cobb was right on every point. The above comment was like hearing on the playground “I know you are, but what am I.”
I can’t give the same accuracy to the Pilot editorial page. Sometimes I wonder if the editorial page writers actually talk to their readers once in a while. It certainly does not seem like it.
Vivian, you criticize us for referencing an editorial, and then you reference an editorial.
hr – how can she be right? The evidence of the amendment affecting contractual rights is right there in front of you, in the Vermont case.
Insider – I have written about the Vermont case before. What I find interesting is that neither you nor hr have talked about the amendment in the context of this case.
So have we. You still criticized us for referencing an editorial that was “opinion” and then turned around and did the same thing.
Any time the opponents want to actual debate gay marriage, we’re up for it.
Gay marriage is already illegal in Virginia. End of debate.
We’ve been over this before, methinks. If this amendment were about same sex marriage, which has been unlawful in Virginia for thirty years without challenge, then the amendment would consist of the first sentence, nothing more.
The facts of the Vermont case are part of the public record. It looks petty and childish for you to pretend that one need rely on an editorial for information about this case. That really is playground talk. Who do you imagine you’re talking to here?
If you have an opinion to offer about why the Vermont case doesn’t demonstrate the meddling with private contracts that the amendment and its more limited statutory precursor are designed to facilitate, let’s hear it.
For one, how will the outcome of this case be different under the amendment? This amendment would not affect the outcome of the current case. The amendment would not change current law, which is what I have been saying all along. Current law in Virginia is what the judge relied on. And this will change current law, how?
As I have repeatedly said, the amendment will not change current law. What will change under current law because of this amendment?
What will change is that we will have such cases now amongst straight unmarried couples as well. (big sigh) I am absolutely amazed that you continue to state that nothing will change.
Ah I see. This isn’t about homosexual marriage. You’re actually worried about all those thousands of straight, unmarried couples with children in Virginia who are just waiting for this amendment to pass so they can break up and go to court.
I understand now.
Exactly, Insider. You do realize that there are a lot more unmarried straight couples in Virginia than there are same sex couples, right?
With the admission that common law marriages entered into in other states would not be recognized, Virginia will become a magnet for people who want an easy way out of their marriages (they wouldn’t even have to go to court), and an easy way to do jurisdiction shopping in custody cases, just as we see in the Vermont case.
It would change existing law in two ways: First, as Vivian points out, by extending existing bad law to unmarried straight couples, and secondly by elevating this extended bad law to the status of a fundamental principle in our Bill of Rights.