On Tuesday, judges of the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit had traded pointed questions at an emotional hearing that reviewed the legal issues surrounding the same-sex marriage ban in the state of Virginia. The Washington Post reported that two of the judges, who had distinctly different views, dominated the hearing on whether marriage is a fundamental right regardless of sexual preference protected by the US Constitution.
The three-judge panel's debate was on a February decision by a Norfolk federal district judge, who had ruled that the state ban on same-sex marriages performed legally in other states and other legal arrangements like civil unions violates the guarantees of due process and equal protection.
The Post said a total of five lawyers had took turns at the podium, but action was seen between Presiding Circuit Judge Paul Niemeyer and Circuit Judge Roger Gregory. Niemeyer, who sided with the state marriage ban, insisted that the vision of marriage the justices had found to be fundamental was the union of a male and a female. Niemeyer added that the state has an interest in marriage because of heterosexual couples' capability to produce children, unlike same-sex couples. The newspaper said although Niemeyer also argued that US states has the freedom to sanction or prohibit new kind of relationships like same-sex unions.
Gregory, on the other hand, consistently compared the case to the 1967 case Loving vs. Virginia, in which the Supreme Court has struck down the interracial marriage ban in the state. Gregory said to a lawyer who had represented the two circuit county clerks who had defended the state's marriage restrictions, "The essence of marriage. is the individual's choice to marry the person they choose."
The Post also said that Gregory had played the sympathy card when he talked about the effects of the ban on children of same-sex couples. Directing his comments to an opposing lawyer, he asked, "Why do you want to deny [children] all these warm and wholesome things about marriage?. You think the child loves these parents any less because they are same-sex parents?"
