VA Legislature Just Voted To Legalize Polygamy

Virginia could soon recognize polygamous (more than two), incestuous (immediate family members), kinship (close relatives), or even child (under 18) marriages now that the General Assembly crossed the first hurdle in amending our state Constitution to repeal language affirming that marriage is between one man and one woman, and replacing it with completely open-ended language.

It’s 2021 in Virginia, with a solidly leftist-controlled government, so you know we’re not making this up. Here’s the context:

In 2006, the General Assembly and the people of Virginia rightly recognized marriage as being a union of one man and one woman by memorializing its definition into our state Constitution. In fact, 31 other states did the same. Fast forward to 2015, when a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court voted to invent a “fundamental right” for people of the same sex to “marry” each other, thus imposing their new definition onto all 50 states. The decision effectively made Virginia’s marriage amendment moot.

Not content with having this new “right”, but eager to destroy all traces of natural marriage from the books, the new liberal majority introduced several resolutions to formally amend the state constitution to repeal the marriage language no longer in effect. The General Assembly did so by passing SJ 270 (D-Ebbin) 24-12, and HJ 582 (D-Sickles) 60-33, which go further than just removing the current language, but actually replace it with new language.  

The resolutions first provide that “the right to marry is a fundamental right, inherent in the liberty of persons, and marriage is one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness.” (Not a bad statement, actually.)  But then it goes on to say that the state and local governments “shall issue marriage licenses, recognize marriages, and treat all marriages equally under the law regardless of the sex or gender of the parties to the marriage.”

Besides constitutionalizing same-sex “marriage” (so that even if the newly comprised U.S. Supreme Court corrects the Court’s 2015 activist opinion, VA’s constitution would still enshrine it), the amendment doesn’t stop there. It says Virginia must “recognize marriages” and “treat all marriages equally under the law”, but nowhere do they actually DEFINE what marriage is! (The language repealed the only definition of marriage there was, and the state Code nowhere defines marriage.)

So, presumably, marriage could mean anything any person or group says it is. Or, other states could come up with new, expansive definitions and Virginia would be forced to recognize those as valid. And now that the constitution would declare undefined “marriage” a “fundamental right”, and demanding that ALL “marriages” be treated equally under law, it means that this would overrule current statutory prohibitions against marriages between relatives, marriages with more than two people (potentially unlimited), and child marriages.

But surely the legislature didn’t intend to do all that, did they?

Well, besides the fact that our legislature’s intent doesn’t matter when courts interpret the laws – only the words do – there is indisputable evidence that the legislative majority actually DID intend to open Virginia up to polygamy.

You see, the committees actually had three distinct versions of the Marriage Repeal Amendment. One of them, HJ 557 (D-Lopez), simply stuck the language about marriage altogether. Another, HJ 539 (D-Levine), had nearly identical language as the version that passed (HJ 582), except that it specified “regardless of the gender of the two parties to the marriage.” Unlike ordinary bills, the House and Senate Privileges and Elections Committees could only choose one version to advance for amending our constitution. In choosing to advance a final version that omits the word two, the legislators very intentionally left open the number of people who could be married to one another at the same time – effectively introducing polygamy into Virginia.

In his dissent to the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges opinion, Chief Justice Roberts predicted exactly what’s happening in Virginia:

Although the majority randomly inserts the adjective “two” in various places, it offers no reason at all why the two-person element of the core definition of marriage may be preserved while the man-woman element may not. Indeed, from the standpoint of history and tradition, a leap from opposite-sex marriage to same-sex marriage is much greater than one from a two-person union to plural unions, which have deep roots in some cultures around the world. If the majority is willing to take the big leap, it is hard to see how it can say no to the shorter one.

Given the California-style policies enacted over the past two years by liberal legislators and Governor Ralph Northam, we should anticipate California-style marriages and “domestic arrangements” – like polyamory – to become trendy in Virginia, especially if the State Constitution is amended with this new language.  Making headlines recently are three men (i.e., a “throuple”) from San Diego, California, who were approved by a court to list all three names on their children’s birth certificate.  The two children were actually conceived using eggs of a long-time friend and gestated by surrogate mothers.  Not only does this arrangement violate God’s intent for marriage and child-rearing, it treats women (and at other times, men) as a utility that nullifies their importance to the family structure. 

However, there is still a chance to stop this marriage repeal and replace resolution because in order to amend the state constitution, the General Assembly must pass the exact same resolution in 2022 before the citizens of Virginia would then vote on the amendment language at the ballot box.  (Note: amending the Constitution does not involve the Governor.) This fall the entire House of Delegates will be up for re-election, which means that if we can champion candidates who will respect the current constitutional language and uphold God’s natural design for marriage and family, we can defeat this next year.

We must do this, and in the coming days and months, we will be letting you know about some of the ways you can help us accomplish it. Virginia’s children and families are just too important for us to give up now.