The Supreme Court has refused to hear the challenges to same-sex marriages in 5 states, making it legal for gays in Virginia to marry.
The Supreme Court on Monday decided not to review rulings that cleared the way for same-sex marriage in Virginia, Utah, Oklahoma, Indiana and Wisconsin, a surprising decision that shows the court is comfortable with the expansion of such unions throughout the nation.
The court’s decision came without explanation and puts off a decision about the constitutionality of gay marriage that would apply to all 50 states. But it sent a clear signal that a majority of the court did not feel the need to overturn lower court decisions that found state prohibitions were unconstitutional. According to a spokesman for Virginia’s Attorney General Mark Herring (D), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit will issue an order at 1 p.m. that will allow same-sex marriages to begin. At the same time, the commonwealth will recognize marriages performed in states where they already are legal.
This is progress for Virginia. Regardless of how one feels about marriage, it is a civil rights issue. One group cannot be granted a right that is inaccessible to another group.
I fail to see how gay marriage hurts me or my marriage. There are many financial gains that are written in the tax codes that protect married couples. Now married gays will get those same rewards–Retirement, death benefits, home ownership nuances, employee benefits, etc. All will take on a new meaning.
Stay tuned. No one knows yet if change will creep in gradually and quietly or if it will blow through the state like a tornado.
https://www.facebook.com/roemmelt.bruce/posts/10152461922653106?notif_t=like
Is Bob Marshall on suicide watch? After an earlier marriage equality decision he opined that Justice Kennedy might be gay because you can’t make those kinds of decisions if you’re not. Since it only takes 4 votes for a cert grant, I wonder if Marshall thinks it was Roberts, Scalia, Thomas or Alito that came out of the closet?
I am sure he is stomping around like Rumplestiltskin.
question for you…the marriage act applies to straight non married couples as well as gays. Will the law remain on the books just to jab unmarried couples?
Sideshow Bob needs fear-mongering to shore up his campaigns. Now he’s rabble-rousing about polygamy. It’s a hoot that he’s such a voyeur when it comes to people’s sex lives. But it’s unfortunate that gays and lesbians have had to wait so long for simple equality in marriage.
Thank you, Bruce, for running against him.
It took 50 some years to eliminate the law that was struck down by Loving. I’ve rounded the numbers but Loving was decided in 1959 or so and the law that prohibited inter-racial marriages was removed only recently.
It sounds like the only way SOCTUS wants to touch this issue is if an appeals court forces them to by upholding a gay marriage ban. This gets them past the current election season without stepping into the culture war. I bet Roberts voted against granting cert.
Actually Loving vs. Virginia was decided in 1967. Scary aint it???!!!!
It’s time for Marshall to retire. Looking forward to voting him out next year.
Today was a good day for our state and country.
I think so too. I was proud to be a Virginian today.
@Bruce
Thank you for being out there and for fighting for equality for ALL Americans.
Today Bob Marshall did implode. Here are his words. I wanted to share them here. He obviously wants to live in a theocracy based on his own world view and no one else’s:
Bob is grasping at straws. He really spends too much time worrying about what goes on in other people’s bedrooms.
pssst–Bob, did you watch Big Love? I know it was fiction but there really are polygamists in America already. Many of them share your political beliefs, in fact. You know…the go forth and multiply part. Lots of kids.
I think polygamists do serial polygamy rather than threesomes but what do I know. I don’t really worry about it. I think people who do threesomes will do that whether same sex marriage is legal or illegal. Just a hunch…
I don’t want to imagine Bob Marshall naked.
from the Times Dispatch:
Gov. Terry McAuliffe today signed an executive order that directs state agencies to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s action that legalized same-sex marriage in Virginia.
Laws of nature? Homosexuality is rampant throughout nature. “Natural” marriage? Where in nature does one find marriage?
Bob, the 1950’s called and they want their homophobic philosophy back…
What an excellent post, Middleman.
You go guy!
Straight shooter, Bob is. Let’s you know right up front how he feels about something. Unlike so many other pols whose forked tongues leave you wondering and uninformed.
So who the heck is this Roemmelt? Just another unlucky feller on the list of losers to Bob?
Bruce is a retired firemen and a local Democrat.
Bob is well entrenched. He will be uprooted eventually, the more irrelevant he becomes.
Yeah, ‘Ol Bob is a straight shooter all right. Just like George Wallace and David Duke before him, you know where he stands. And just like them, he stands on the wrong side of human rights and of history.
And since he knows that fear motivates, he probably will win again. Fear of the “other,” whether it be immigrants, gays, change, minorities, whatever, excites “his” people to vote, just like it did with Wallace and Duke.
But luckily for the majority of Americans, who want to move beyond the middle of the last century, the only people who pay heed to ‘Ol Bob’s divisiveness and fear mongering are the dying breed that supports him. Everyone else has moved on.
I agree with Wolve that Marshall’s most distinguishing trait is that he is not at all worried about expressing his views. I’m not sure, particularly in his case, why that should be considered a good thing. I guess the positive part is that it is often very entertaining. The downside is that it kind of gives us a window into the inside of his mind (assuming he believes this stuff and it is not just the bright shiny trinkets he uses to trade with his target voters). But it definitely is uninhibited, unfiltered, unguarded, seemingly spontaneous, and quite different from the usual pol shadow-fleeing that we see in many others who think we should entrust them with an elected office.
I believe that Bob genuinely believes what he says, horrifying as that might be.
Hmmmm. Marshall has won 11 straight terms in the 13th District, all of them except 2003 by big margins. That would seem to indicate that there are a lot of voters in PWC (and a small slice of Loudoun) who like the man and what he stands for. Eleven straight. Pretty good. Sounds to me like the guy can be called a “winner” — at least at the HOD level.
This Roemmelt guy, by contrast, says he lost two races to Marshall. Sounds to me like he is the “loser” in this equation.
Seems to be a lot of hate visible in this commentary, for Marshall and, by extension, his fellow Virginians who used their constitutional rights to vote for him. Sad.
I don’t think it is sad that Americans can express their choice in an election. Why is this sad?
Marshall really had nothing to do with Loudoun County until very recently when gerrymandering when totally haywire. The 13th district used to be more mid-county. Now it reached out and captured me, I am sorry to say. Marshall really has to deal with a different demographic now. He was almost beaten by a political novice last time. You might say that Mr. Marshall’s enemies within his own ranks through him to the wolves.
Marshall has been known for his past aggression also. For instance a certain woman I know very well went up to him during a candidates night a number of years ago and remarked to him (after his approached his opponent and told him just to quit the race) that she could see why his fellow Republicans didn’t care much for him because of his voter message and his tactics. He became enraged and turned to the woman’s husband who hadn’t said a word, took off his glasses and leaned into the man’s face. The husband immediately put his hands in his pockets and said “Sir, my hands are in my pockets.”
Marshall then started goading and said we will continue this outside in the parking area. His wife then engaged and started pulling on Marshall saying Bob! Bob!
Meanwhile, the husband, at that stage of the game did speak and said, “Bob, you had better listen to your wife.” (yes, he was grinning)
Now, is this the kind of aggressive A-hole the voters want in office? This event was a small gathering. Is this how Marshall behaved on the floor of the House of delegates? I don’t know. Does Marshall want to fight all the men whose wives have big mouths? What does he do now he is older? How old is Marshall? 70? Does he take all his political battles to the parking lot? At what point do you get too old to fight the perceived enemy?
Well, don’t keep us waiting any longer, Starry. Which men would you LIKE to imagine naked?
Marshall is another hypocrite. His real life doesn’t equal the pro family image he’d like to have. Usually where there is too much talk there are hidden issues.
Wolve: I’ve seen nothing in this thread that indicates hate for either Marshall, for Virginians or for people’s right to vote for him if they are so convinced. I do, however, detect a considerable counter-view, and one that may be growing even in Marshall’s district, that the jig is up and that times are changing. Marshall is riding a one-trick pony that works up to the point that an informed electorate begins to pay attention and get itself off its collective butt to go to the polls (non-voting being a perennial weakness of people who think they are too smart for smarmy, cheap political tricks). Short of that point, Bob will do fine at the polls. I sense that that vein is pretty well played out, however, at least around where he lives.
His district has really shifted. I am now in that district and I find it horrifying. I am in 20109 which is sort of known for being a minority district. He will not last much longer. Just is.
Bob’s trick is the following. His agenda is purely anti-abortion. He started off as an anti abortion lobbyist and helped Judie Brown form American Life League. Google it if you want to see an extreme anti abortion view. however, Bob is smart. I have never said he isn’t.
He actually wrote a book of sorts about how to work a precinct. I believe his gets volunteer church workers to go out and work his campaigns. They know his grand plan is to end abortion. However, he always does something really good for his constituents during an election cycle. This past time he helped lead the charge against the proposed bi-county parkway. Most PWC folks oppose this road. Most people also aren’t involved in the politics of abortion. They don’t know and they don’t care. When they hear Bob Marshall’s name, they think ah…there is the guy who went to bat for us opposing the bi-county parkway. Let’s keep him in office.
That’s how PWC keeps sending an extremist to Richmond. Most people ignore the extremist part of him. He fights unpopular taxes and other main stream events that people hate.
Hmmm……….Suicide watch. Rumplestiltskin. Sideshow Bob. Fear mongering. Rabble rousing (presumably the 13th District voters are the “rabble”). Voyeur. Implode. Grasping at straws. Naked. George Wallace. David Duke. Ol’ Bob’s divisiveness and fear mongering.
So, these are lib terms of endearment or something, Scout?
BTW, how are the RINO’s doing with trying to save Pat Roberts in Kansas? They tell me out there that Pat’s only remaining connection to Kansas is a postal box in Dodge City. By gosh, the Rovian RINO’s could well blow the whole Senate gig in November.
Bob Marshall is well-known in Richmond for his side-show antics and extremism. Scout is hardly a liberal. Do you think wanting to issue your own money is a bit extreme in today’s times? Bob Marshall doesn’t.
You might want to check out the story about Bob Marshall trying to start a physical fight with a woman’s husband. Now who is fear mongering?
Wolve, how do you feel about the new Virginia same-sex marriage? That is the real issue here. How will it impact you? I don’t think it will impact me one way or another. Am I totally comfortable with it? Probably not. I only know a few couples who are married and I haven’t seen them since they tied the knot (in other states). I think we are always uncomfortable to some degree with things that are new to us. I am excited for the many Virginians who now can marry the ones they love and have the same rights that the rest of us do.
Will I find some words awkward? Probably. I will ask what the people prefer. They know it is new also. Like is this your wife or your spouse? How shall I address you as a couple. What are your preferences. Hell, I don’t know how these things work. It is a new frontier. Is my husband my husband or my spouse? Which do I prefer?
It’s a hate thread, Scout. Come clean.
Scout — I clean forgot “hypocrite” and a slyly unexplained remark about Bob’s personal life. Another of those lib terms of endearment?
Bob is a hypocrite in that he uses Christianity as the basis for his big #1 agenda item. then he goes out and tries to brawl with those who oppose his point of view and his methods. To me, if you are going to fall back on Christianity, you had better be playing the “what would Jesus do” role in the play.
There is an example. For the record, I have supported initiatives that Marshall has championed. He and Mrs. Marshall tried to save the senior day care center on the western end of the county. His father in law used the facilities. I believe the gentleman had Alzheimers. I supported the Marshalls efforts for obvious reasons. People with aging parents need all the help they can get. The county dropped the ball. Shame on them.
Wolverine obviously has a soft spot for Bob Marshall, but trying to turn disgust with his hateful message into hate on the part of the commenters here is a sophomoric tactic and easy to see through. Calling him extremist and homophobic and xenophobic and hypocritical obviously isn’t hate- it’s fact. What Wolve is carefully trying to avoid here is actually addressing Bob’s hateful and anachronistic ideas. Come on, Wolve- if you love him, you gotta be there for him!
If you’re comfortable with Eugene Delgaudio’s representation, you probably love Bob Marshall. Most of us aren’t and don’t.