Va. focus of battle over gay marriage

RICHMOND -- The post-election chapter in America's culture wars opened here Thursday, inside a corner office overlooking the state capital designed by Thomas Jefferson, with a gay activist handing a miniature Bundt pan to the author of the nation's most restrictive statute banning gay unions.

''I don't get it," the Republican lawmaker, Virginia Delegate Robert Marshall, said as he examined the cake pan, festooned with ribbons. An attached note suggested that Marshall send Bundt pans -- once considered a traditional wedding gift -- to gay partners who marry. The delegate, a conservative Catholic, was not amused.

Two months after voters in 11 states overwhelmingly approved constitutional bans on gay marriage, Virginia has become ground zero for activists on both sides of the issue. Democrats and Republicans are closely watching the state as a test case for how to proceed next.

As the general assembly opened last week, conservatives introduced four versions of constitutional bans, declaring that last November's elections proved America will never accept gay marriage. Meanwhile, 250 gay activists descended on the capital Thursday in an attempt to lower the temperature on the issue, seeking to speak to legislators on a personal level, a lobbying effort that culminated in a meeting with their nemesis, Marshall.

Standing uncomfortably in the middle of the emotion-packed siege is a leading Democratic presidential prospect, Governor Mark R. Warner. Democratic strategists eager to recapture the White House by making inroads into the Republican-dominated South are looking to Warner for clues on how to recalibrate the party's message on cultural issues such as gay marriage.

''He's one of the few Democratic governors who understands how to frame cultural values in conservative red states," said Republican pollster Whit Ayres.

But so far Warner, a Harvard law graduate whose 2001 campaign featured ''Sportsmen for Warner" signs and his sponsorship of a NASCAR race truck, is keeping his distance.

''I don't support gay marriage," Warner said after a swing through a reception sponsored by a gay rights group. ''But I also know what happened here in Virginia last year was a case where a bill that was the subject of so much controversy went well beyond issues around marriage. It went to the right of people to form legal contracts."

Warner was referring to Marshall's sweeping statute, which the governor vetoed because it banned not only gay marriage and civil unions but also partnership contracts ''between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage." The Republican-dominated legislature handily overrode the governor.

Warner, a cellular technology entrepreneur who has successfully worked with Republicans on fiscal issues, also supports efforts to overturn a Virginia law preventing private companies from offering health benefits to domestic partners. By staying on this free enterprise-private contract turf, Warner has been able to make the case that Republican conservatives are overreaching, a strategy that draws praise from his party's strategists.

''He understands the interdependence of cultural and economic issues," said Ed Kilgore, policy director of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council.

But this year's debate over a constitutional amendment is sure to lead the cautious Warner into more dangerous territory. Under Virginia law, a constitutional amendment must pass the assembly twice before going before voters, but it doesn't require the governor's signature. Nevertheless, Warner will face voter and media questions about his views.

''I'm sure something will pass this year, and I'll have to take a look," he said. Warner said he will consider whether Virginia already has enough legal protection of traditional marriage, and whether the version that passes is ''restricted to issues of marriage" or delves into areas such as private contracts.

Virginia gay-rights activists describe the constitutional efforts as mean-spirited overkill. ''How many times has our legislature said marriage is only between a man and a women? Three times," said Dyana Mason, executive director of Equality Virginia, which mounted last week's lobby effort.

Despite Warner's opposition to gay marriage, liberals mostly consider him a friend, saying that the Democratic governor needs to be extra cautious in Virginia, which still maintains a ''crimes against nature," or sodomy, law on its books after the US Supreme Court struck down such statutes in 2003.

Social conservatives, meanwhile, view last year's successful ballot initiatives -- prompted by Massachusetts' embrace of gay marriage -- as a national mandate to move forward with more constitutional change, including another attempt at passing an amendment in Congress. ''The smashing election results on Nov. 2 have energized conservatives," said Robert H. Knight, director of the Culture & Family Institute, an arm of Concerned Women for America. (Eleven states approved amendments on Election Day; two others, Missouri and Louisiana, passed amendments earlier in the year.)

While gay marriage bans are under consideration in a handful of other states, both sides have fixed their sights on Virginia. The populous state is a mix of staunch conservatives to the South -- the Christian Coalition was born here -- and moderates and liberals in the north, where suburbs ring Washington D. C. In last year's presidential election, some Democrats held out some hope of winning the state but President Bush prevailed by a comfortable 54-45 margin.

''Virginia is the bellwether," said Knight.

Conservative Republicans also see Virginia as a convenient opportunity to corner moderate Democrats like Warner. ''Politicians love halfway houses," said Marshall, the author of the anti-gay union statute. ''But on this, there ain't no halfway house. Warner's doing the John Kerry dance."

Gay-rights activists, however, say they have a new dance, highlighted by face-to-face appeals to delegates that are designed to win people over with personal stories rather than strident protest.

Bill and Anne Thomas spent their 37th wedding anniversary in Richmond's assembly building, describing to lawmakers how their world shifted when they learned that their grown son was gay. ''I want them to know what it feels like, as a mother, when your world view has to change or you lose what's precious to you," Anne Thomas, a retired software engineer, said in a voice that quivered with emotion.

One delegate appeared moved by her story, but an aide to a less sympathetic lawmaker responded that her son was a sinner who should be punished by God.

After lunch on Thursday, a dozen activists stood outside Marshall's corner office, hoping for a meeting that might lead him to soften his position on gay unions. Last summer, some of these same activists picketed Marshall's home, and he has remained angry. Signs labeling him a ''bigot" lacked civility, he said, and the invasion of his family's privacy forced him to cancel a son's graduation party.

This time the encounter began more cordially.

Tom Osina, who works for an association management company in Northern Virginia, opened the meeting with a call to ''open a dialogue" between the two sides.

Osina was one of the protesters outside Marshall's house last summer, but he insisted in a later interview that the demonstrators were respectful and said that Marshall's district office is a P.O. Box -- leaving nowhere else to picket. But knowing how upset Marshall was by the protest, Osina decided it was time to ''lower the rhetoric."

''First of all," Marshall responded, ''I want to say that I respect people. I don't respect positions."

But within five minutes, arguments broke out over the nature of marriage, over health insurance and emergency room visits, over the scope of the contract language in last year's bill banning gay unions.

Osina stepped in to tamp down the debate. Two women in the room pulled out photos of their children to show Marshall. ''I know you love kids and I know you love families," said one. A minister professed his belief in a Jesus who preached tolerance.

The often tense half-hour meeting ended on a high note, with picture taking, laughs, and the Bundt pan gift. But no ground shifted. ''They're not going to change, I'm not going to change," Marshall said after the group had left. ''They were talking about religion and Jesus Christ. But stoning [homosexuals] to death in the Old Testament surely was not a sign of acceptance."