RICHMOND, Va. (ABP) -- Virginia legislators have moved their state one step closer to adopting a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

The Virginia Senate voted 28-11 Jan. 24 to follow Virginia's lower legislative chamber, the House of Delegates, in approving the proposed amendment. The move effectively forwards the issue on to the commonwealth's voters for approval on the November 2006 election ballot.

Virginia already has some of the nation's most restrictive laws banning marriage and marriage-like civil unions for gays. However, legislators supporting the amendment have said they believe it is necessary to overcome state court challenges to the marriage laws.

The proposed amendment also would explicitly ban any "legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effects of marriage."

It would amend Virginia's 230-year-old Bill of Rights, which was first adopted in 1776 and served as the model for the first 10 amendments to the federal Constitution. The section altered begins, "That no free government, nor the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue…."

If voters approve the measure, Virginia would join 18 other states with constitutional bans on same-sex marriage. Many of those have been passed since 2003, when the highest court in Massachusetts ruled that state's practice of denying marriage to same-sex couples violated its own constitution. The decision animated gay-marriage opponents in many states, who feared court challenges could spread legalized same-sex marriage from Massachusetts across the nation.

It also spurred a movement for a national anti-gay-marriage amendment, but that so far has proven unsuccessful.

Virginia's move comes just days after a judge in neighboring Maryland found that state's law banning same-sex marriage violates its charter. As a result, conservative Republicans in Maryland's legislature have filed a proposal for a similar amendment, with the support of Gov. Robert Ehrlich (R).

-30-

---