Virginia’s General Assembly enshrined a ban on same-sex marriage in the Commonwealth’s constitution back in 2006. Now, 20 years later, they’re taking the last legislative steps to roll back that ban.
“This is not a civil rights issue. This is an issue that transcends time and transcends cultures," said former Republican Delegate Bob Marshall back in 2005. "We are defending and affirming marriage that is seriously under attack.”
Radio IQ collected audio and video from the decades old floor sessions via the Library of Virginia's archive.
Marshall is a conservative official who’s name still sits in Virginia’s Constitution via the Marshall-Newman Amendment, passed in 2006, atop the Commonwealth’s ban on same-sex marriage.
But Marshall is long gone from the General Assembly, and his beliefs about gay marriage, at least in the legislative chamber, are largely gone, too.
Following a 67-31 vote in the House Wednesday, Virginia’s Senate votes to repeal the constitutional ban Friday afternoon, 20 years later.
But some legislators from that era remain, including Virginia’s first openly gay state lawmaker, now Senator — then Delegate — Adam Ebbin.
“We are about to actively write discrimination into our state constitution," the senator from Alexandria said in his floor speech against the ban in 2005. "I cannot stand by while this body again uses gays and lesbians as scapegoats for what has happened to the institution of marriage.”
When asked about he though the phrase “defense of marriage" meant back then, Ebbin said it was part of the "culture."
“I thought it was a crock, as I said in that speech," he told Radio IQ a week ahead of Friday's vote. "It needed to be defended from heterosexuals who were divorcing and committing adultery and whatever else.”
Ebbin said there were a lot of external factors pushing Virginia to join the more than 30 other states that enacted bans on same-sex marriage back in the early aughts. Then-President George W. Bush was backed by a strong religious political movement that helped get the word out, and it aimed to increase turnout for the GOP.
And that religious message, "marriage is between one man and one woman," was in full force that January day in Richmond.
“It’s that definition that has existed for thousands of years," Campbell County Republican Delegate Kathy Byron said on the floor back in 2005. "It’s that tradition that has served Western civilization faithfully and aided in its advancement and continuation.”
It led to a referendum that fall and passed with 57% of the vote.
“Back then, I didn’t know many other gay people in the building except for one other member," Ebbin said of his time as the chamber's first openly gay delegate. "Years later, a Republican legislative aide I met at a gay senior event. He [told me he] would put the good candidates for judicial office on the top of the pile. That was his contribution. (the ones who wouldn’t be homophobic?)"
"But I felt very much alone,” Ebbin said.
That other member was gay, but not out at the time. It would take another eight years for Delegate Mark Sickles, Ebbin’s good friend in the chamber, to come out.
“People who knew me knew about me and that was fine with me," Sickles said in the General Assembly Building press room last weekend, watching video of his own floor speech from two decades ago.
"And I give credit for the reason we made so much progress is that people are not willing to live in the closet anymore and that’s been extraordinarily helpful," the delegate from Fairfax County said. "I probably should have done it earlier.”
Sickles came out publicly in 2014, just before the U.S. Supreme Court ruling nullifying Virginia’s ban along with all the others. But back when Virginia was voting to pass the effort, Sickles had a feeling it was more of a Hail Mary than a serious commitment.
“The other side who wanted the amendment thought the same thing, ‘We have a short time here, we got to get this passed before society changes," he said. "And there was a little of a hurry about it, and of course the Republican Party was using it to drive turnout to certain elections.”
Now, both elected officials are leaving office and heading to the administration of the incoming governor, Abigail Spanberger.
But not before they’ll vote on a repeal of that same-sex marriage ban.
“It's gonna feel good," he said just before his vote Wednesday. "It’s going to be a 20-year anniversary vote. Which is kind of coincidental, which is nice it only lasts 20 years.”
The legislative effort likely wraps up next week after both chambers pass each other’s versions of the repeal. It’ll head to the voters this fall.
Delegate Marshall declined a request for comment for this story. He lost his seat in 2018 to Danica Roem, the Commonwealth’s first openly transgender lawmaker. Roem is now a state senator.
Roem said voters will get the chance to not only repeal the 20-year-old ban, but replace it with protections for same-sex marriage instead.
"It is long overdue that we repealed Marshall Newman, replaced it with an affirmative right to marry," the Prince William County Senator said Thursday night. "It will be great to show the people of my district what we mean when we say you are welcomed here because of who you are, not to fight it."
For Republicans in the House Chamber today, repeal is a nonissue.
"The U.S. Supreme Court has spoken on it and there's nothing we should do about it," said House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore ahead of Wednesday's vote.
Kilgore was there in 2006; he called for the final vote on the amendment's passage. It's an informal role of the majority party.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
