OPINION:
The language of the New Age, like a lot of things in Li’l Abner’s hometown of Dogpatch, can be “amusin’ but confusin’.” The word “sex” has been displaced by “gender,” though no one ever called Marilyn Monroe a “genderpot,” and no woman we know thinks a silky black night gown will make her feel “gendery.” Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia thinks he can ride to the rescue of all by making the language of marriage more confusing, if not amusing.
The governor asked the Virginia legislature Monday to remove all references to “husbands and wives” from the state law books and replace them with the gender-neutral and politically correct word “spouse.” (The plural of spouse would presumably be “spice.”) Mr. McAuliffe argues that changing nouns will create jobs in Virginia. “It does send a message to the entire commonwealth, to the nation and to the globe,” he says, “that Virginia is welcome to members of the LGBT community.”
The tax and regulatory climate is actually far more important to a business looking to relocate. A business that would move to a state with high taxes and an unfriendly regulatory climate just to avoid calling a husband and a wife a husband and wife needs new management. Mr. McAuliffe, who never met a tax or a spool of red tape he didn’t like, should nevertheless keep in mind that he has no mandate to impose a divisive social issue agenda.
He may please the shrinking Democratic left, but goofy legislation has small prospects in the General Assembly, where two-thirds of the members of the House of Delegates are Republicans and the state Senate is narrowly controlled by Republicans. Mr. McAuliffe was narrowly elected governor himself, and wouldn’t have been elected at all but for a vanity third-party candidate who prevented the election of a governor with a majority.
The governor should focus on economic growth and job creation, for which there’s broad, bipartisan support. Divisive politically correct measures that are likely going nowhere are a waste of legislators’ time.
“The marriage issue has been settled,” says state Sen. Adam Ebbin, Alexandria Democrat and the first openly gay member of the legislature, “and now it’s time to fix the code.”
But that’s only the stuff of one man’s wishes and dreams. The legal status of attempts to overturn thousands of years of custom, tradition and law is more than enough to confuse a team of Philadelphia lawyers. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Virginia’s statutory and constitutional prohibitions of same-sex marriage unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court, which gets the final word, first stayed the ruling, then allowed it to stand but would not hear the case on its merits. Though the Supreme Court has not taken up the issue of the constitutionality of state prohibitions of same-sex marriage, the justices at some point will have to resolve the matter, like it or not, of conflicting lower court rulings.
If the Supreme Court should ultimately uphold state law regulating marriage, and it will if the 9th and 10th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution still mean anything, the Virginia law and constitution will be reinstated. The Democrats and their gay allies know that, and that’s why they’re attempting to make a pre-emptive strike. It’s premature and irresponsible for the General Assembly to presume to play with language. The gay caballeros can work out for themselves who gets to be the husband and who gets to be the wife.
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