Tag Archives: Virginia

Lesbian Parents Win Right To Have Names On Children’s Birth Certificates In Virginia

Lesbian Parents living in Virginia, have won a legal fight to have both of their names listed on their twins’ birth certificates.

However, after an 18-month game of wait-and-see as the issue of gay marriage was being settled in Virginia, Richmond Judge Designate T.J. Markow last month ordered the Office of Vital Records in the Virginia Department of Health to amend the birth certificates to show Maria and Joani as the “only parents of the children.”

Maria Hayman delivered the twins in June 2013. Joanie Hayman contributed the eggs after they were fertilized with sperm from a donor who revoked his parental rights.

Lesbian-couple-01

Joanie Hayman’s name couldn’t be listed on the twins’ birth certificate. Under the Virginia Code, egg donors don’t have parental rights.

Because of the unique nature of the twins’ birth, the couples attorney, Colleen Quinn saw an opportunity to make a legal case for Joani’s inclusion on the birth certificates and offered to take on their case pro bono.

The Haymans started their legal fight a few months after the twins were born not just to make a statement, they said. Legal recognition of their already-formed family was important to them.

“This is best for our family, so we’re going to try. I thought it would be longer. Even if you’re with your partner and your children and you’re a family, it matters. But it’s on paper when the world recognizes you as a family.”

Maria Hayman

Same-sex Marriages Could Start Next Week in Virginia

A federal appeals court refused to delay its ruling striking down Virginia’s gay marriage ban, which means that same-sex couples could begin marrying in the state as early as next week.

The state would also need to start recognizing marriages from out of state by next Wednesday, assuming the U.S. Supreme Court does not intervene.

A county clerk in northern Virginia had asked the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond to stay its decision, issued in late July, while it is appealed to the high court. The appeals court’s order did not explain why it denied that request.

While clerks in other states within the 4th Circuit – West Virginia and the Carolinas – wouldn’t technically have to begin issuing licenses as well, federal courts in the state would likely make them if they don’t, said Nancy Leong, a law professor at the University of Denver. Maryland, another state in the circuit, already allows same-sex marriages.

“There’s no longer a justification to keep same-sex couples from marrying. Given how many different judges in so many different parts of the country … have reached the same result, it seems highly likely that the plaintiffs will ultimately prevail on the merits, and I think that, in turn, explains why the 4th Circuit was not willing to grant a stay.”

Nancy Leong

Ken Connelly, legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing Prince William County Clerk of Court Michele B. McQuigg in the case, said the group will seek an emergency stay from the nation’s highest court “as soon as possible.” That request will go to Chief Justice John Roberts, who is responsible for the 4th Circuit.

Connelly said he expects the stay to be granted, “given that there isn’t any substantive difference” between the Virginia case and a federal case in Utah, in which the Supreme Court has twice granted delays in the state’s fight to keep its same-sex marriage ban.

But Adam Umhoefer, executive director of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which argued against Virginia’s gay marriage ban, said

“Virginia’s loving, committed gay and lesbian couples and their children should not be asked to wait one more day for their fundamental right to marry.”

Adam Umhoefer

Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2006 that banned gay marriage and prohibited the recognition of such marriages performed in other states. The appeals court ruling overturning that ban was the third such ruling by a federal appeals court and the first in the South.

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring – who has said he will not defend the state’s ban and believes the courts ruled correctly in striking it down – asked the Supreme Court last week to review a lower court’s decision striking down the state’s ban.

Herring said he believes the case will prove compelling to the high court because of the “stringent, discriminatory nature of Virginia’s marriage ban” and other factors.

A panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati last week considered arguments regarding six cases from Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. Some observers have said the 6th Circuit may be the first to uphold statewide gay marriage bans after more than 20 consecutive rulings in the past eight months striking them down.

Virginia’s Gay Marriage Ban Struck Down by Appeals Court

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled Monday that Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

The 2-1 ruling upheld a previous decision issued earlier this year by a Virginia district court, which struck down the state’s ban on gay marriages.

“Virginia has failed to advance a compelling state interest justifying its definition of marriage as between only a man and a woman. Virginia’s laws declining to recognize same-sex marriage infringe the fundamental right to marriage and are therefore unconstitutional.”

Reads the ruling

The circuit court also has jurisdiction over three other states with similar bans: North Carolina, South Carolina and West Virginia. As noted in the 4th Circuit’s ruling, the Southern District of West Virginia stayed a challenge to the state’s ban pending Monday’s ruling.

In the ruling, Judge Henry Floyd argued that personal opposition to same-sex unions is not a legitimate legal basis for banning gay marriage.

“We recognize that same-sex marriage makes some people deeply uncomfortable.However, inertia and apprehension are not legitimate bases for denying same-sex couples due process and equal protection of the laws. … The choice of whether and whom to marry is an intensely personal decision that alters the course of an individual’s life. Denying same-sex couples this choice prohibits them from participating fully in our society.”

Judge Henry Floyd

As the Associated Press notes, the Virginia ruling is one of several gay marriage cases that may be appealed to the Supreme Court.