Same-sex
The issue of gay marriage will likely be with us through November and is one that deserves full public discourse. I emphatically support a constitutional amendment preserving the institution of marriage to be between a man and a woman. Marriage has been defined over the last 5,000 years as being exactly that.
However, what was not included in the March 8 article (“In Virginia, support for same-sex marriage is slim”) were my comments on why I believe there should be an amendment. Now that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has deemed the exclusion of homosexuals from marriage to be unconstitutional, the federal Defense of Marriage Act, signed into law in 1996 by President Clinton, has become moot.
It is not enough, as the law applies in the Marriage Act, to say states don’t have to recognize homosexual marriages from other states. Why? Because now the “full-faith and credit” clause in the U.S. Constitution comes into play. The first part of Article IV, Section 1 states: “Full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state.” Which is to say, what is federal law in one state will be federal law for all states. Clearly, Virginia and all of the other states will have to recognize gay marriages. Is this what the people of the 3rd Congressional District want? I do not think so.
The current congressman from the 3rd District, Robert C. “Bobby” Scott, has already made it clear that he supports homosexual marriages, most notably by voting for an entirely different law in 1996, which, ironically, is directly opposite the Defense of Marriage Act that Clinton signed.
Scott’s law would have required every state to recognize homosexual marriages performed in another state. Fortunately, Scott’s radical view of marriages failed.
On the matter of civil unions, the Daily Press reporter classified my statement as waffling. In his defense, I have yet to hear one universal working definition of just what is a civil union. Regardless, I would like to clarify. As I said in the article, “I do believe homosexuals have rights as well.” I also believe our society has gone immeasurably beyond almost all standards in accommodating the homosexual community over the last couple of decades.
Scott wholeheartedly believes the issue of gay marriage to be equal to the civil rights struggle that we African-Americans have fought and died for throughout American history. That is a huge stretch, which marginalizes our community’s long struggle by lumping together what is a civil rights movement based on race with gay marriage, which is an issue of lifestyle.
Sears, a Republican, is a former state delegate now challenging U.S. Rep. Robert C. Scott in the 3rd Congressional District.
