Virginia is asking voters to finish the work of marriage equality

Twenty years after Virginia voters amended their constitution to ban same-sex marriages, a coalition of LGBTQ+ advocates, faith leaders, elected officials, and families is launching a campaign to erase that language and replace it with an explicit constitutional guarantee of marriage equality.The campaign, called Virginians for Marriage Equality, officially launched June 1 in Richmond, where supporters gathered to begin organizing for a statewide referendum that will appear on the November 3 ballot. If approved, the amendment would remove Virginia’s unenforceable marriage ban and affirm that two adults may marry regardless of sex, gender, or race. It would also require all legally valid marriages to be treated equally under the law."This amendment is deeply important to me as a Virginia voter and deeply personal to me as a married woman," Narissa Rahaman, executive director of Equality Virginia and a member of the Virginians for Marriage Equality campaign committee, said during the launch event.Related: Virginia lawmakers pass marriage equality, abortion & voting protectionsThe referendum asks Virginians to revisit one of the most consequential culture war battles in the state's modern history.In 2006, Virginia voters approved the Marshall-Newman Amendment, a constitutional provision defining marriage exclusively as a union between one man and one woman. The measure passed with 57 percent support amid a national wave of state constitutional amendments banning same-sex couples from marrying. The amendment also prohibited Virginia from recognizing legal statuses that approximated marriage, making it one of the broadest marriage bans adopted in the country.That language remains in Virginia's constitution today.Federal courts struck down Virginia's ban in 2014 in Bostic v. Schaefer, and same-sex couples began marrying in the Commonwealth later that year after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Virginia's appeal. Marriage equality became the law of the land nation