Quotes of the Morning: Loving vs Virginia

“Mary Cheney, the vice president's openly gay daughter, is pregnant. She and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, are ‘ecstatic’ about the baby, due in late spring, said a source close to the couple.
It's a baby boom for grandparents Dick and Lynne Cheney: Their older daughter, Elizabeth, went on leave as deputy assistant secretary of state before having her fifth child in July. ‘The vice president and Mrs. Cheney are looking forward with eager anticipation to the arrival of their sixth grandchild,’ spokesman Lea Anne McBride said last night.”
-Washington Post, December 6, 2006

“With all snarky sarcasm aside I’d like to give my congratulations to the happy couple. That is wonderful news for them. Everyone in the Cheney household seems to be happy and supporting of them and their relationship, so it is good to see that the child will be growing up in a loving family.”
-Skippy

“Cheney has described her relationship with Poe -- whom she took to last year's White House dinner honoring Prince Charles and Camilla-- as a marriage. The two met in 1988 while playing ice hockey and began dating four years later. They moved from Colorado to Virginia a year ago to be closer to Cheney's family.:
-Washington Post, December 6, 2006

“Virginia? That could make things a little toughter..”
-Skippy

“In November, Virginia voters passed a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions; state law is unclear on whether Poe could have full legal rights as a parent of Cheney's child. The circumstances of the pregnancy will remain private, said the source close to the couple. This is the first child for both.”
-Washington Post, December 6, 2006

“Well the new state constitutional amendment may have been unclear, but the State of Virginia certainly isn’t..”
-Skippy

“The act [the Marriage Affirmation Act] -- really an amendment to an earlier law -- was passed in April, over Gov. Mark R. Warner's objections, and it takes effect July 1. It says, ‘A civil union, partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges and obligations of marriage is prohibited.’ It goes on to add that any such union, contract or arrangement entered into in any other state, ‘and any contractual rights created thereby,’ are ‘void and unenforceable in Virginia.’
When gay marriage came up, Virginia was among the first states to preemptively ban it, in 1997. Moreover, Virginia is the only state to forbid even private companies, unless self-insured, from extending health insurance benefits to unmarried couples. That provision affects cohabiting straights but works a far greater hardship on gay couples, who cannot marry.
Those steps, however, impinge on the power of third parties (corporations and the government) to recognize gay couples. In the Marriage Affirmation Act, Virginia appears to abridge gay individuals' right to enter into private contracts with each other. On its face, the law could interfere with wills, medical directives, powers of attorney, child custody and property arrangements, even perhaps joint bank accounts. If a gay Californian was hit by a bus in Arlington, her medical power of attorney might be worthless there. ‘Sorry,’ the hospital might have to say to her frantic partner, ‘your contract means nothing here. Now leave before we call security.’”
-Jonathan Rauch, Washington Post, June 13, 2004

“So when Mary gives birth her wife, according to the laws of Virginia, will not be considered ‘family’ of the child. I’m sure that this won’t trouble the happy couple too much. After all, Mary is the daughter of the vice-president, so I am guessing that she will manage to receive a few special benefits that the rest of the gay couples in Virginia do not share, but it is a wee bit ironic that Mary is going to come up against the very thing that the Administration campaigned for.. removing the rights of loving gay couples to have the same legal rights as the rest of us. Maybe they should look back at their own history in Virginia.”
-Skippy

“This case presents a constitutional question never addressed by this Court: whether a statutory scheme adopted by the State of Virginia to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. For reasons which seem to us to reflect the central meaning of those constitutional commands, we conclude that these statutes cannot stand consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment.”
-Supreme Court Decision, Loving vs. Virginia, June 12, 1967

“A different decade. A different situation, but it is still Loving vs Virginia.”
-Skippy