Twenty years ago, Virginia put a ban on same-sex marriage in the state’s constitution. And on Tuesday voters will decide whether or not to replace that ban with affirmative protections. Political leaders from both parties spent the last weekend before Election Day trying to convince voters to vote yes, or no.
At The Chapel in Midlothian, an evangelical Christian church where Colonial Heights Senator Glen Sturtevant asked a room of about 70 people to vote to keep Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage. He warned its passage could mean businesses of faith may struggle to deny services to LGBTQ people, comparing it to the cake baker cases at the US Supreme Court.
“By stripping that language out of the constitution, it potentially has the ability, with a crafty enough lawyer, to begin coming after people of faith,”
Sturtevant tells the crowd.
Meanwhile in Richmond’s Carytown neighborhood Saturday morning, Governor Abigail Spanberger walks onto the stage at Babe’s of Carytown, one of the nation’s oldest lesbian bars. She said she hopes the amendment’s win margin is bigger than the nearly 60% vote to begin the ban some 20 years ago.
“Over, over and over again, Virginians want to ensure their neighbors, friends, loved ones, have the ability to be married and for that marriage to be protected in our communities and also in our state constitution,” Spanberger said.
Virginians will decide the fate of same-sex marriage in the state’s founding document Tuesday.
If fundraising for either side is any indication, where vote yes outspent vote no by more than 10 to one, and the amendment is successful, the prohibition will be replaced with an affirmative right on January 1st.
