When liberals have an issue with, say, Phil Robertson speaking his mind on same sex marriage in an interview, conservatives get all up in a lather for attacks on “freedom of speech.”
But let a liberal speak out on the other side of the issue, and “freedom of speech” goes out the door.
“attorney general Mark Herring took an oath less than a month ago to uphold and defend the Virginia Constitution. The Marriage Amendment is part of that Constitution. Mr. Herring had barely lifted his hand off the Bible he swore on before he set about to make a mockery of his oath to the people of Virginia. The AG should be upholding the rule of law, not undermining it,” said E.W. Jackson, the failed 2013 Republican lieutenant governor nominee, who is rallying supporters to “save the Marriage Amendment,” according to a press release issued this week.
Herring last month changed Virginia’s legal position on the Marriage Amendment issue, siding with the plaintiffs in a pending case challenging Virginia’s ban on marriage rights for same sex couples. Because he determined the law to be a violation of the U.S. Constitution, Herring said he will not defend the ban and will instead seek to have it declared unconstitutional.
“I swore an oath to both the United States Constitution and the Virginia Constitution. After thorough legal review, I have now concluded that Virginia’s ban on marriage between same sex couples violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution on two grounds: marriage is a fundamental right being denied to some Virginians, and the ban unlawfully discriminates on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender,” said Herring. “Virginia has argued on the wrong side of some of our nation’s landmark cases-in school desegregation in 1954, on interracial marriage with the 1967 Loving decision, and in 1996 on state-supported single-gender education at VMI. It’s time for the Commonwealth to be on the right side of history and the right side of the law.”
Jackson accused Herring of “anti-Christian bigotry and racial insensitivity if not outright racism,” to quote the press release.
“Mark Herring accuses us of being on the ‘wrong side of history,’ equating our stand with that of segregationists of the past. What he is saying is that Protestants and Catholics who hold to the word of God are unjust and evil. In fact he is saying that the Bible and the God of the Bible are evil. And by comparing same sex marriage to the history of Americans of African Descent, he is showing either gross ignorance or a gross disregard for slavery, Jim Crow, the KKK and the other elements of that sad chapter in our history,” Jackson said.
“Enslaving and discriminating against people because of the color of their skin is very different from holding to the specific teaching of scripture that homosexual behavior is sin. To equate sexual behavior with being black is an exploitation of the black community to manipulate people emotionally to make a case which cannot be made logically. The attorney general should apologize to the black community and to all the people of Virginia and either uphold the law or resign,” Jackson said.
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