Charleston, WV

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.

West Virginia lawmakers consider marriage discrimination amendment [contd.]

“I’ve been in a committed relationship for 13 years and I’ve had to do it without the help of the state,” Skinner said. “To consider the constitutional amendment is to just completely marginalize lesbians and gays, because there is no same-sex marriage in West Virginia right now and there’s not about to be.”

He also questioned how an amendment would protect heterosexual marriages from divorce and other problems.

“Is this going to help one marriage in West Virginia?” he asked.

After the hearing, Skinner told HRC’s BackStory blog, “I tried to connect with the Delegates and Senators to help them understand that sexual orientation is not a choice.  I believe a few of them left the room with a new understanding.”

Jeremiah Dys, president of the conservative Family Policy Council, and a local representative of a coordinated national campaign to get similar discrimination amendments on state.

He was also invited to speak at the hearing and told the legislators, “It is no longer debatable that there exists a coordinated, nationwide effort to redefine marriage.”

“West Virginians want to vote on the definition of marriage,” Dys told the committee. “It is the responsibility of you, as a legislature, to protect the right of every West Virginian to vote on this issue.”

Republicans legislators proposed the study during regular legislative session earlier this year, according to the State Journal. Not surprisingly, the state GOP favors the amendment, arguing it is needed because courts in Connecticut,  Iowa, and California struck down marriage laws similar to the one that is on the books in West Virginia.

Similar amendment in other states have also been effective tools for the GOP to drive its voters to the polls. But West Virginia puts up a high bar for an amendment. Only 122 amendments have ever proposed to voters, according to the State Journal.

In most states where marriage amendments have been added to the constitution, a citizen petition is enough to get the proposal onto a ballot. But in West Virginia, an amendment can be added to the ballot only after it’s been approved by the legislature, or proposed at a constitutional convention.

West Virginia University law Professor Robert Bastress told the committee that prior amendments in West Virginia have aimed to expand rights and freedoms, rather than restrict them as this one would do.

"We have not amended the constitution to restrict any rights to date," Bastress said, "unless you want to count the ability to buy liquor as a right, which I don't."

That’s a subject that was echoed at Tuesday’s hearing by ACLU organizer and lobbyist Seth DiStefano, who was also invited to testify.

“A constitutional amendment should expand rights, not restrict them,” DiStefano said, according to Charleston Daily Mail.

He told the committee that making minority rights “a function of popular opinion” endangers the rights of everyone in the state.

Everyone has been part of a minority group at some point, DiStefano said -- whether because of their age, race, religion, gender, or disability.

“No one’s rights are safe if anyone’s rights can be taken away by the whim of popular opinion,” he said, according to Charlotte Gazette.

“It would be very tragic by making this kind of public policy statement of exclusion on a national stage,” DiStefano added. “I don’t think it would be good for West Virginia’s reputation.”

The committee also heard from a DC-based lawyer representing the activist right-wing law group Alliance Defense Fund who warned the committee polygamy might be legalized if legislators don’t pass the amendment.

Democrats in West Virginia “are walking a thinner line” than Republicans on the proposed amendment according to the State Journal.

The paper’s reporter, Walt Williams writes:

The party helped push through the state’s gay marriage ban in 2001, although several in the party disapprove of it. However, opposition to such a ban could alienate many of their rural and religious backers, while support could alienate homosexuals and liberal voters.

Committee members didn’t take any action after Tuesday’s hearing.

Source: Lawmakers Study Amendment Banning Gay Marriage | State Journal
Crowd packs legislative meeting on W.Va. marriage amendment | Charleston Gazette
Leaders' views on gay marriage proposal at odds | Charleston Daily Mail
West Virginians Fight Anti-Marriage Amendment | HRC Backstory blog

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