- Title: USA: Virginia gay marriage ban struck down
- Date: 14th February 2014
- Summary: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (FILE) (REUTERS) SAME SEX COUPLES ENTERING ROOM FOR MASS WEDDING CEREMONY VARIOUS CLOSE UP OF COUPLES VARIOUS OF SAME SEX COUPLES DURING CEREMONY
- Embargoed: 1st March 2014 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Usa
- Country: USA
- Topics: People
- Reuters ID: LVA93GVDSGCRIWQ98FMKQTEK16ZF
- Story Text: A federal judge struck down Virginia's ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional late on Thursday (February 13), saying it denied gay couples a fundamental freedom to marry.
The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Arenda Wright Allen in Norfolk, Virginia, added momentum to growing acceptance of gay marriage in the United States.
Allen said Virginia's constitutional ban on same-sex marriage violated the right to due process and equal protection of the law under the U.S. Constitution. However, she stayed execution of her order striking down the ban pending an appeal to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
"The Court is compelled to conclude that Virginia's Marriage Laws unconstitutionally deny Virginia's gay and lesbian citizens the fundamental freedom to choose to marry," Allen, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, wrote in her 41-page opinion.
She ordered submission of a proposed final order by March 14.
Plaintiff in the case Tim Bostic said he and his partner were thrilled.
"We filed this suit because although we've been together for more than two decades, we want our relationship to be recognized just like everyone else's, we want to be married. And it is important to us that as Virginians, we get married in the state we love and the state that we have called home for so long," he said.
The decision in Bostic v. Rainey, in which two gay couples sought to strike down the Virginia ban, follows two high-profile rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court last year.
Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring applauded the ruling and said the court's decision was a big step forward for equal rights in the state.
"The ruling by Judge Arenda Wright Allen last night is yet another step, another step forward in the long road to insuring that all Virginians are treated fairly and equally under the law. Virginians deserve to be treated exactly the same regardless of their race, gender. religion or sexual orientation."
Seventeen states plus the District of Columbia recognize gay marriage, including eight states where it became legal in 2013.
Thirty-three ban same-sex couples from marrying by constitutional amendment, statute, or both. In Indiana, a vote by state residents on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage was delayed by at least two years on Thursday.
The American Foundation for Equal Rights, which brought the Virginia case, said Allen's ruling upheld core U.S. principles of equality.
In 2006, 57 percent of Virginians voted for the constitutional amendment imposing the ban. But a poll released in October by Virginia's Christopher Newport University showed that 56 percent of likely voters opposed the ban, while 36 percent favored it - reflecting the reversal in public opinion. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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