... and we lost
The cultural divide in Virginia grows as Northern Virginia voters solidly rejected the marriage amendment, while the rest of the state believed the right-wing propaganda and passed it by a 14 percentage point margin.
I take some comfort in the Democratic majority in the House, and hold some hope in Democrat Jim Webb's hairs' breadth of a lead over George "Macaca" Allen (which he didn't have when I went to bed last night).
But I'm wondering what will happen in the future. The slam dunk would be a test case where a lesbian or gay couple's wishes were so blatantly denied that it could go all the way to the Supreme Court, but it might take years for a case like that to emerge. (I was hoping for such a case after the state legislature passed the same measure into state law last summer, but nothing happened other than a lot of queer couples fleeing the state into Maryland.)
The most realistic thing I can think of right now is to hold the Republicans at their word. They said throughout the campaign that they didn't intend the amendment to invalidate wills or power of attorney documents, or to prevent hospital visitation (though I think it's pretty clear that they intended to harm custody arrangements). So, let's introduce legislation to write it explicitly into state law that the amendment may never be used against wills, power of attorney or hospital visitation, and see how quickly the Republicans violate their own campaign promises. It would at least expose the dishonesty from the right.
But my fantasy is that Northern Virginia secedes from the rest of the state, taking our tax dollars (which, let's be honest, keep the rest of the state afloat) with us. It'll never happen, but it's not entirely unfair: they want bigotry while Northern Virginia does not, so why should Northern Virginia have to pay for their prejudice?
James
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