Why are Virginia Democrats pushing a state constitutional amendment that would guarantee the right to marry regardless of “gender”? The amendment, now before voters, would make legally permanent both “same-sex” and “same-gender” marriage.
According to the Virginia Department of Elections, if the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell were overturned (which the Supreme Court has signaled is not in the cards), then same-sex marriages would again be illegal in Virginia because “the prohibition on marriages between persons of the same sex or gender remains in the state’s Constitution.”
Say what? Nowhere in the original marriage law currently on the books but unenforceable is there a prohibition against “same-gender marriage.” In fact, before the day before yesterday, no one would have ever conceived of a “same-gender marriage” that was distinct from “same-sex marriage.” What was prohibited were marriages between two men to each other, or two women to each other (but we now know that Democrats have a Big Problem defining what a woman is, including a Democratic Supreme Court Justice).
Prior to Obergefell, if a man (with XY chromosomes, born with male genitalia) self-identified as a woman and wanted to marry a woman (with XX chromosomes, born with female genitalia), there was no issue, whether the woman self-identified as male or female. If a woman who self-identified as a man wanted to marry a man, there would be no problem, whether the man self-identified as female or male. In other words, there was no prohibition whatsoever against “same-gender marriage.”
But once given equal status with “sex” in the state constitution, the door is open for Virginia courts to rule that self-identified “gender” is a protected category, legally equivalent with “sex,” so no barring physical males who identify as female from girls’ locker rooms and sports teams, for starters.
Which could explain what Virginia’s Democrats are really up to with this amendment.