RICHMOND, Va. (WTVR) – The morning after a federal judge declared Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, the Family Foundation called into question the Valentine’s Day Eve announcement.
“The timing of this decision certainly calls into question Judge Wright Allen’s objectivity,” a Friday morning statement from the group stated. “This rushed release just prior to Valentine’s Day reeks of political show, making her ruling less a legal argument and more a press release. It’s disappointing that a federal judge would so blatantly expose her personal political agenda at the expense of not just marriage, but our entire social fabric.”
According to its website, the Family Foundation’s mission is to “strengthen families in Virginia by applying founding principles and faith to policy and culture.”
Thursday’s action by the judge did not make it legal for same-sex couple in Virginia to get married. She issued a stay with her injunction pending appeal, meaning in appeals court would consider the case before any law was changed.
The judge concluded that prejudice is behind Virginia’s same-sex marriage ban.
“Justice has often been forged from fires of indignities and prejudices suffered,” U.S. District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen wrote.
In 2006, 57 percent of Virginians voted in favor of the Virginia Marriage Amendment that defined marriage as only between a man and a woman.
“Regardless of one’s stance on marriage, the people of Virginia were disenfranchised by this ruling as our voice and our vote that amended our Constitution have been rendered meaningless by a single federal judge with the assistance of our own Attorney General,” the Family Foundation statement read. “Protecting a timeless institution for the well-being of children was the will of the overwhelming majority of Virginians and this ruling denies this important state interest as it places the desires of adults over the outcomes of children.”
A press conference on the judge’s ruling is expected at 11:45 a.m.
