The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling on July 28th in the case of Bostic v. Schaefer which held that Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional based on the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Now, a US District Court in West Virginia has extended the stay on that ruling until the US Supreme Court weighs in yay or nay on the issue due to overlap with another case before the West Virginia Court.
As we are all learning when it comes to the law and gay rights – “gay means stay.” Indefinitely.
After yesterday’s ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court declaring Virginia’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional, North Carolina’s Attorney General announced the state would no longer defend their marriage ban since North Carolina is also in the Fourth Circuit’s jurisdiction and the outcome at this point is predictable.
However, West Virginia’s AG seemed to indicate his office will take a “wait and see” attitude.
Federal Judge Robert C. Chambers has ruled that the lawsuit brought by Lambda Legal against West Virginia’s same-sex marriage ban may proceed.
However, the judge said without plaintiffs legally married out-of-state, that specific aspect of the suit must be amended.
None of the couples named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit has an out-of-state marriage license, so they don’t have legal standing to challenge the fact West Virginia won’t recognize them, U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers said in his order Wednesday.
Chambers gave the plaintiffs – three same-sex couples from West Virginia — until Feb. 12 to amend their complaint.
Karen Loewy, attorney for Lambda Legal, said the issue is being considered but the team is leaning against adding new plaintiffs.
The judge also required that more defendants be added to the lawsuit or explain why suing only two county clerks would affect law in the entire state.
A West Virginia man shot and killed his new neighbor and the man’s brother without warning as the two inspected their land.
The shooter told police he thought his alleged victims were breaking into a building he mistakenly thought he owned, and police are baffled as to why he chose such a drastic measure to preserve something of no value to him.
The Cabell County Sheriff’s Department charged Rodney Bruce Black, 62, of Barboursville, with two counts of first degree murder after he killed Garrick Hopkins, 60, of Milton and his brother, Carl Hopkins Jr., 61, of Oak Hill, at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Sherriff Tom McComas told the Daily News on Monday.
Garrick Hopkins and his wife had just purchased land next door to Black and planned to start building a home in the next few weeks, McComas said.
The landowner had invited his brother over to check out the property Saturday afternoon. Black saw the two men — who were both married with children — looking inside a shed. Then, allegedly without warning or calling the police, he grabbed a rifle and fired once at both men. They died at the scene.
“He shot first and then called 911,” McComas said. “He said they were breaking into his house but it wasn’t his property.”
Fox News forwarded the notion that it might be appropriate for school children to be forced to work in exchange for free school meals, after a Republican lawmaker in West Virginia proposed such a requirement for a new law curbing child hunger.
“I think it would be a good idea if perhaps we had the kids work for their lunches: trash to be taken out, hallways to be swept, lawns to be mowed, make them earn it,” said Ray Canterbury, a Republican from Greenbrier and a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, during debate over Senate Bill 663, also known as the Feed to Achieve Act.
Free meals are provided through the National School Lunch Program to students whose family’s income is 130 percent or less of the federal poverty guidelines. For this past school year, that means a family of four with an annual income of $29,965 qualifies. Children with household incomes of 185 percent or less of the poverty guidelines can get reduced-price meals under the program, which — I was surprised to learn — was established in 1946 by the National School Lunch Act.
West Virginia’s Feed to Achieve Act wants to go beyond that by making sure no child goes hungry at school, but Canterbury repeated the theme of “there is no such thing as a free lunch” during the delegates’ discussion of the bill, which had passed the state Senate unanimously.
“Like so many of my generation, my views on allowing gay couples to marry have been challenged in recent years by a new, more open generation.
“Churches and ministers should never have to perform marriages that violate their religious beliefs, but the government shouldn’t discriminate against people who want to marry just because of their gender.
“Younger people in West Virginia and even my own children have grown up in a much more equal society and they rightly push us to question old assumptions – to think deeply about what it means for all Americans to be created equal. This has been a process for me, but at this point I think it’s clear that DOMA is discriminatory.
“I’m against discrimination in all its forms, and I think we can move forward in our progress toward true equality by repealing DOMA.” – Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
Democrat Earl Ray Tomblin beat back a torrent of late Republican attacks linking him to President Obama to win the West Virginia governorship Tuesday night.
Tomblin, a 36-year politician who had served as acting governor since Joe Manchin left the governorship for the Senate last fall, defeated Republican drilling executive Bill Maloney in a contest that became nationalized in its closing days .
Continue Reading With 81 percent of precincts reporting, Tomblin led Maloney 49 percent to 47 percent.
Maloney fought back from what was once a 30-point race to narrow the contest in recent weeks, with the help of nearly $3.5 million in television ads from the Republican Governors Association. The onslaught of commercials — including the final salvo linking Tomblin to “Obamacare” — clearly did damage to Tomblin’s image, but did not prove to be the death blow that some Democrats had feared.
A 30-second spot charging Tomblin with helping to implement “Obamacare” rotated heavily in the Mountain State this weekend, including during prime slots in the pricey Washington, D.C., market, which covers just a few thousand voters in the state’s eastern panhandle.
But Maloney underperformed in that area, taking only 49 percent in Jefferson County, the easternmost county in the state.
