VIRGINIA: AFER's Olson & Boies To Join Lawsuit For Marriage Equality

AFER's Ted Olson and David Boies, the team that brought marriage equality back to California, will today join the July lawsuit that seeks to overturn Virginia's ban on same-sex marriage. The Washington Post reports:

The addition of Olson and Boies to a case in Norfolk willprobably bring more attention to the challenges to Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriages. The state’s voters in 2006 amended the state constitution to ban such marriages, as well as civil unions, and to forbid recognition of unions performed elsewhere. Thirteen states, including Maryland, plus the District of Columbia, allow gay marriage. Olson said AFER was invited to join the case by attorneys for the plaintiffs, Norfolk residents Timothy Bostic and Tony London, whose marriage application was turned down, and Carol Schall and Mary Townley, who have a 15-year-old daughter and whose marriage in California is not recognized by the commonwealth.

More about the case:

The Norfolk complaint makes extensive use of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s majority opinion that DOMA “places same-sex couples in an untenable position” and “humiliates” the children raised by such couples. The lawsuit compares the Virginia ban with Kennedy’s finding that “DOMA instructs all federal officials, and indeed all persons with whom same-sex couples interact, including their own children, that their marriage is less worthy than the marriages of others.

Ted Olson: "Given what was said in DOMA [decision] and given the record we made in California and given what we’re going to establish in Virginia, we’re going to be able to persuade a majority of the court that this is the right thing."