What’s at stake

On Nov. 7, when voters fill polls in what are expected to be high numbers, Virginians will make a number of decisions.

They will decide whether to keep in office or oust incumbent Republican Sen. George Allen for Democratic nominee Jim Webb, as well as to keep or change their 11 representatives in Congress.

Then, as they reach the end of their ballots, Virginians will decide what Americans have debated for years now: the definition of marriage.

Ballot Question #1, or the Marshall-Newman amendment as it has been named after its sponsors, Delegate Bob Marshall and Sen. Steve Newman, will ask Virginians whether to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman and henceforth prohibit the commonwealth from creating or recognizing a “legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage.”

The latest Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. poll, which surveyed 625 likely voters from Sept. 5 to 7, showed that 54 percent of voters support the amendment, while 40 percent oppose it. A Mason-Dixon poll in July found similar numbers, with a 2 percent increase of supporters of the proposed amendment and a 2 percent decrease of opponents.

With the general elections weeks away now and both supporters and opponents saying voter polls favor them, political groups across the state are stepping up their efforts to appeal to Virginia’s more than 4 million registered voters.

Support and opposition groups alike are debating, rallying, phone banking and televising advertisements-with as much vigor as any congressional candidate-every day until Nov. 7.

The Commonwealth Coalition, the leading group of 120 Virginia businesses and civic, community and religious organizations opposing the amendment, is appealing to voters with a simple request: Read the entire three sentences of the amendment.

“Our amendment is one of the most broadly written and ambiguous in the entire country,” said Dyana Mason, field director of the Commonwealth Coalition, referring to the last sentences of the amendment. “Not only is it defining marriage in the constitution, but it also is going to deny legal rights for all unmarried couples in this state, whether they’re gay or straight. That’s something that’s going to cause a lot of legal problems for a lot of families in this state in the upcoming years if this thing passes.”

Mason said the amendment’s supposed ambiguity could work toward opponents’ favor. “We don’t have to change everyone’s mind about marriage equality,” said Mason, who is also the executive director of Equality Virginia, a gay rights lobby group. “All we have to do is get people to read the full three sentences of the amendment and ask them the question, ‘If you don’t know what this means, why would you put it into the Constitution?’ ”

Mason and other opponents are concerned that if passed, the amendment will go far beyond its intention of defining marriage and prohibiting same-sex marriage and civil unions, which are already banned in Virginia. The amendment could lead to judges dismissing domestic violence charges against unmarried defendants, they say, as has happened in two cases in Ohio. The defendants’ attorneys in those cases argued that state domestic violence laws violated Ohio’s 2004 marriage amendment, which reads similarly to Virginia’s, because it applied a marriage-like status to unmarried defendants and domestic violence victims.

“We already have defense attorneys saying they are going to use the amendment against the government in getting their clients’ charges dismissed,” Mason said. “It’s going to be up to the judges exactly what this amendment means, but it’s already set up to go into gear this process where it could cause a lot of legal problems for victims of domestic violence and leave them very vulnerable-very vulnerable.”

Stacy Ruble, advocacy coordinator of the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance, told The Washington Blade in August that if domestic violence laws only protect married couples, an unmarried victim of domestic violence cannot file a protective order against his or her abuser. A protective order prohibits one party from approaching the other within a defined distance. Ruble added that police only would be able to charge an abuser with simple assault and battery.

Chris Freund, director of policy and communications at the Richmond-based Family Foundation-the group spearheading support for the amendment-has heard the domestic violence claim more than he has wanted. He said the notion is “absolutely, 100 percent, unequivocally false.

“I think in all the arguments that are made against the marriage amendment, I think this is the most despicable argument out there,” he said. “It is taking an issue where people are in real traumatic situations and really desperate and scaring them with something that is absolutely not true.”

Freund and supporters of the amendment argue that domestic violence protection laws are written in such a way that they refer to “households,” not spouses.

On Sept. 14, Attorney General Robert McDonnell released an official opinion on the issue of what amendment opponents have called its unintended consequences, saying the amendment would not negate such contracts as wills and group accident and sickness insurance policies. On the topic of domestic violence, he said, “Virginia law does not equate cohabitation to a legal status similar to marriage, nor does its domestic violence statute categorize victims based on marital-type relationships.”

While it remains to be seen how judges would interpret domestic violence laws in light of the marriage amendment, Mason said the amendment could impact colleges and universities in Virginia negatively.

Talented gay and socially conscious professors may turn down offers to teach in Virginia, she said, if they cannot get health care benefits, for example, for their partners as part of their benefits plan.

Mason mentioned a biology professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Lynn Adler, who left the university in August 2004 to take a position at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. In a letter to Virginia Tech President Charles Steger, Adler said she decided to leave because Virginia’s Affirmation of Marriage Act prevented her partner from receiving health insurance, and the commonwealth would not recognize her and her partner as parents if they had children.

Adler said she was influential in landing a $500,000 National Science Foundation grant to Virginia Tech.

“She went from a state where she can’t cover her partner on her health care to one where she got full marriage rights,” Mason said of Adler.

Just as professors may stay away from Virginia institutes of higher learning, Mason said, so too may talented out-of-state students who feel the commonwealth is not progressive. These are concerns of some VCU students, such as Bonnie Gabel, a sophomore theater and political science major from Maryland.

As president of Queer Action at VCU, which has received resources and support from the Commonwealth Coalition, Gabel said she is alarmed by how apathetic many students have been toward the marriage amendment.

“A lot of what I’m hearing is ‘Oh, well, it doesn’t affect me. I don’t care one way or the other. It doesn’t affect me,'” Gabel said.

Freund, likewise, has observed apathy among the ranks of conservatives.

“Our biggest enemy is apathy-that people assume it’s going to win, so ‘I don’t really have to do anything,’ or ‘It’s not that important that I vote,'” he said. “We need to make this as wide a margin as possible on Election Day.”

On college and university campuses across the state, gay rights and diversity groups like Queer Action are rapidly mobilizing in an effort to fight the perception that today’s younger generations are indifferent to sociopolitical issues. Much like their non-campus counterparts, they are tabling, distributing literature, rallying and sponsoring debates.

While opposition groups may appear more visible on college campuses, students across the state have created amendment support groups as well. Nick Timpe, a junior public policy major, has started Students for Marriage at Patrick Henry College, a Christian school in Purcellville known for its ties to the Republican Party.

Students are forming or have formed Students for Marriage chapters at 20 schools across the state, including the College of William and Mary, the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech. Timpe, the organization’s state director, said he has been in contact with students at VCU but does not have anyone yet committed to organizing a chapter.

Timpe said Students for Marriage chapters are combating the “idea that colleges are bastions of liberalism.”

“As we hold values that support the marriage amendment, we’re showing not all people of our generation are against traditional values,” he said.

Timpe stressed that Students for Marriage is a non-partisan group aligned around the marriage amendment, not homosexuality. The group does not take a stance on it, he said.

There has been some confusion, however, about the group’s ideology at George Mason University. Students there have accused Students for Marriage of posting anti-gay fliers that Timpe described as “extreme” and “bigoted.” He said the group had nothing to do with the postings.

“It’s been interesting to see how we’re kind of a scapegoat for any bigoted orprejudicial language that comes out of the student body that is anonymous and isn’t attributed to anyone in particular,” he said.

Freund has been working with Students for Marriage, assisting them with resources and support.

“They’re providing balance,” he said.

Freund said while college students in general may be more accepting of same-sex marriage, the larger population of Virginia is not. He said a majority of Virginians will show on Nov. 7 that they are not ready to “buy the idea of same-sex marriage.”

In fact, Freund said neither he nor the Family Foundation has even considered an outcome in which voters turn down the amendment, saying statistics give them more than enough confidence.

If voters did turn down the amendment, Freud said he does not know what the next step would be for him and other supporters. If voters pass the amendment as he expects, Freund said the Family Foundation will go on to work toward making marriage between one man and one woman a “stronger institution.” Among other things, the organization wants to make no-fault divorce laws, which are decided by a preponderance of evidence, more strict.

Meanwhile, the Commonwealth Coalition is preparing for potential outcomes by putting together a litigation team, which will seek to appeal the marriage amendment if it is passed. If voters turn down the amendment, Mason said legislators will inevitably introduce similar legislation again, just as they have at the federal level.

“Regardless,” she said, “it’s going to be a lot of hard work still ahead of us.”