February 08, 2014David Ingram
Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Attorney General Eric Holder (click here) on Saturday announced widespread changes within the U.S. Justice Department to benefit same-sex married couples, such as recognizing a legal right for them not to testify against each other in civil and criminal cases.
The changes, unveiled by Holder in a speech to a gay rights lobbying group in New York, are designed to continue the push for gay rights in the nation after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year said the federal government cannot refuse to recognize same-sex marriages carried out in states that allow them....
Or. Are we on a roller coaster ride?
By
Feb. 11, 2014
...Virginia's two Catholic bishops (click here) have urged Attorney General Mark Herring to defend the state's marriage definition amendment, "to defend the state laws he agrees with, as well as those state laws with which he personally disagrees." Their policy arm, the Virginia Catholic Conference, has called on Catholics to write Herring to ask him to defend traditional marriage or appoint outside counsel. A federal judge began hearing arguments Feb. 4.
That the same-sex marriage issue has come to the commonwealth is no surprise, said Jeff Caruso, executive director of the conference, who regarded it as part of a national strategy by marriage equality advocates.
"We certainly expected to see [it] in Virginia and indeed, we are seeing it and we're going to fight this as hard as we possibly can," he told NCR.
While lawsuits proceed in federal court, Caruso noted that recent legislative efforts to repeal the state's constitutional ban have not garnered enough support, a possible signal that a majority of Virginians stand by the 2006 voter-approved amendment.
"It had the support of 57 percent of those who voted, and I believe that there is still a very strong support for it here in the commonwealth today," he said.
However the rulings in Virginia and other parts of the country play out, Caruso is among the many that see it as inevitable that the issue returns to the highest judicial chambers.
"It's virtually certain that the Supreme Court will have to rule on the legality of same-sex marriage again," Green said. "And a lot of these cases that we're talking about may be the vehicle by which they do that."
