Source:
Charleston Gazette,
State Journal,
Charleston Daily Mail,
HRC Backstory blog 
An overflow crowd packed into a legislative hearing room last week in Charleston, West Virginia to hear testimony about a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution that would define civil marriage as a special right of heterosexual couples.
A joint legislative judicial subcommittee held the hearing to consider a resolution that would require state lawmakers to study an the marriage-discrimination amendment. Because it wasn’t a public hearing, only guest speakers were allowed to testify, West Virginia University’s State Journal reports. The hearing room was packed nonetheless, with more than 70 people in the room and spilling the hallway, Charleston Gazette reports.
Stephen Skinner, president of Fairness West Virginia and a gay attorney, was one of those invited to testify.
He told the committee that he grew up in West Virginia and chose to move back to the Mountain State to practice law, and said an the discriminatory amendment would reinforce stereotypes about the state and discourage professionals from moving here just as it is running a campaign asking former residents to “come home” to West Virginia, he said.
“What we are talking about today is whether there should be an asterisk at the end of the come home campaign,” he said. “Should you come home if you are lesbian or gay, because we really don’t want you?”
“I want to stand up today and be the voice for gays and lesbians here in West Virginia,” Skinner told lawmakers, adding that he represents a small snapshot of about 39,000 gay and lesbian West Virginians, according to Charleston Daily Mail.
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